


Elixir of Life

by BleedingCoffee



Series: Trope Bingo: Round 13 [3]
Category: Eureka (TV)
Genre: Alchemy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Community: trope_bingo, M/M, Trope Bingo Round 13, Undeading, enough metaphors to make a philosopher's stone, jack/nathan - Freeform, many many many threads from various episodes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2020-12-16 06:31:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21031793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingCoffee/pseuds/BleedingCoffee
Summary: Jack Carter loses his life in the line of duty leaving Nathan desperate to find a solution to Death itself.





	1. Comprehension

**Author's Note:**

> This story was in the works, and was supposed to be complete in time for October 3rd. (That obviously didn't happen as life got in the way.) That date has significance in both my fandoms as Eureka has had a few nods to Fullmetal Alchemist that I absolutely reveled in: One being the human transmutation circle on the wall in Christopher Dactylos alchemy lair in “All that Glitters” and the explosion of the Artifact happened on October 3, 2006.(Never forget!)
> 
> I thrive on this shit.
> 
> However I missed my mark, but I still want to get this posted in the same month. No need to know both series, it's merely inspiration and I never stay true to source material anyway.
> 
> This also is a prompt fill for my Trope Bingo: Round 13 card for Language/Translation

**Warnings**: Death (brief), My love affair with semi-colons, Anime quotes, 

**AN:** I'm going to give "Previously On Eureka" images another try. If the image doesn't show up, the link should work. Let me know if this is an issue for anyone.

* * *

_Previously on Eureka:_

[Link](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/DEq0vsoJsGSiaESH2Xtpy7Qf5Oih3V3os_5T3_FsdIv1hAbNeJ5R8JGa57mHmZNJpCzPmDkYy0oNBe6sLk_XlIyWsc6d5vFOOHNOBwtBQaJg5tIzFXFTqPKQyYozaKu1xOIabtxFfiB2SoIfFp6VziMJjMBExjnL9HYeOZYrgx19PpWD57MagD-9w_XJ_82VVGhQiLgslpfQLWH8Ou53cLlq6Mi9dshIu4mRv3DxEQa94tbfOqorhB_HbJvuEsIesiuKHMjV9sYd4PcuKufn5EKryYIm-DIGDZT2oeKLVxJjB-7CIr7HDch5rvhrIe-hOKi1CMmtSn3UZAev8grh2fCxqe_0WKW6oj-ydPHrG6YzTMrNoxAO7biFaeZsVKI9p3D6kXj5CLk3G2bl4EmsVbgGywa40ZwEI3PTMbi6MUVPrwgeelhQqx_uFfqoKXUYtcO2jxVmP72oC4IBEnok4W3tYTM-dol-Qivq87uVxtimQe4qAWtoXfhWAFpS-SXwm6FTMHTXtbAPQKmCYQQcep2OZCAJfGdWoK9Hz7M_bCjgLGSRDy4E1BPoGTr8e3G3lF1IFu_iuzB03HRiIBU1c9dXCf7-wdZF4220NOjR0f-OcKmWX6vTbfzR99H9o_e2Y7GKcDqTUlIecBs0MR5xGOrlWgCx7HhaS1rmARtL73ahjKoxvgL29Q=w556-h625-no)

* * *

_Elixir of Life_

Chapter 1

**Comprehension**

_"On the day we left, we burned down the family home and all the familiar things inside, _

_because some memories aren't meant to leave traces." - Alphonse Elric_

* * *

_Time of Death....9:27 am October 3rd..._

Nathan would never forget the sound of Allison's voice cracking as she tried to do her duty as a medical doctor, by admitting defeat. Her hands were covered in blood, in _Jack's_ blood, and tears streaked down her face as she finally realized modern medicine couldn't save a man shot in the heart. There was hope, hope since he hadn't died immediately as he slumped into Nathan's arms. Hope vanished quickly, along with the threat they were facing as the rogue robots on Main Street all overheated and exploded. 

_Time of Death....9:27am...October 3rd_

Nathan knew the significance of _that_ time and date was not lost on Henry. There would be questions after the grieving period was over, there would be accusations. His forgiveness, the absolution of blame over Kim's death was now being questioned because, as men who understood mathematics to the degree they did, they knew there was no such thing as a coincidence like this. 

However, today...today was about Jack Carter not Kim Anderson.

Nathan didn't listen to a word Henry said as he struggled, as everyone did, to get through the eulogy at Jack Carter's funeral. Nathan was analyzing the data, replaying the failed experiment over and over to avoid being here, in _this_ moment. Denial? No, this was different. This wasn't him ignoring reality it was him trying to fix it. He still found himself with wet eyes covered in a film of tears, but chose to look up at the cloudless sky and avoid breaking down like the rest of the people here. They were saying goodbye and Nathan was determined to never accept goodbye as an answer.

Unfortunately Jack wasn't trapped in space time or in some virtual Eureka, he had been killed in the old fashioned way: by bullet from a rogue military project. He had been killed in the line of duty, because that was Jack's job; saving people by putting his life at risk. Except in Eureka it was all about dealing with the repercussions of pushing the boundaries of science instead of criminals pushing boundaries of the law; there was no good versus evil just....present versus future. It shouldn't have happened. He ignored all the warnings and kept pushing, because that was _his _job and who he was, and now Jack paid the price.

_Mark time and date. _

_October 3rd, 2006 _

Echos of the past rang through to the present and made the future look bleak. Nathan stared up at the sky and then closed his eyes as he once again replayed Jack's last moments. He had saved his life because that was why Jack selflessly did; it wasn't because of their relationship, it wasn't because he chose him over anyone else, Jack instinctively put himself between a prototype robot and his body to protect him. And he did. As he always did. Worse, Jack knew he was going to die this time, he could see the look of 'sorry' on his face because he was leaving a daughter behind who needed him,needed Eureka. Hell Eureka needed them both.

More than anyone needed Nathan Stark.

That sounded so...selfish. He felt like he was robbing Jack of his heroic moment and making it about him. However it was a realization that Jack made the world a better place, more than anything his own brain could conjure into existence, that helped ground him right now. Value of resources, properties of elements...that was something he could focus on. Emotions would do no good here, it would only lead to acceptance of the situation and he was determined to not accept this result. And that was why he was contemplating the impossible. Science couldn't help Jack, but maybe pre-science could.

Alchemy.

Nathan happened to have a bit of experience with an Alchemist in Eureka and had confiscated his research and amused himself with browsing through it all. What he had known prior to that Dactylos situation was that Alchemy's greatest prize was the fabled Philosopher's Stone and the pursuit of that substance had lead to the creation of modern chemistry. The Philosopher's Stone, a substance that changed ordinary metals into precious metals as well as acted as an elixir of life with healing powers and the power of immortality. A myth. Alchemy however, was still alchemy: a pseudoscience. It was_ a_ science though, as the pursuit of knowledge and desire to bend the laws of nature was at it's very core. The Stone, the Elixir of Life, the Tincture...so many names for that piece of the puzzle that would let an ordinary man play God and ignore the rules of nature itself.... and he felt he had something that fit just that description in Section 5.

The Artifact.

His obsession.

Jack's killer.

Nathan swallowed hard because the artifact was supposed to give him everything and instead it took everything from him. Emotions slammed him again as the mere thought of the artifact made memories of it's power flash before his eyes. Memories of Jack being shot on Main Street and years later being killed on that same street, on the same _day_ that Kim Anderson was killed. Memories of healing power as Jack was saved by Carlson and the heat of the flash of light as the Artifact exploded and killed Kim Anderson, sparing him but taking away his job that he sacrificed so much for. It was sending a message, showing him the ebb and flow of it's power; what it could give, it could take away.

The Artifact knew how much Jack Carter meant and the pain of that realization almost made him lose his composure. Jack was more than just Sheriff and rival. He had become a friend, then a friend with benefits. They danced around the edges of being something more because they both had so much to lose and so many issues with relationships and what they had was too good to ruin by pushing it's boundaries. 

Then he was gone.

But that look, Jack's last look, told him that it was too late. They were already in love. Deep. Despite the precautions, despite pushing each other away on countless occasions, they had fallen harder than they expected. Enough that Jack would give it all up for him. Jack's final look wasn't just his regret that he was abandoning Zoe, but that he _wasn't_ sorry for choosing Nathan's life over his. Instinct made him throw himself in front of the bullet, but there were no regrets as he looked up as Nathan tried to stem the flow of blood from his chest.

“Nathan?”

He startled out of his thoughts and was surprised to look down at Zoe Carter who had never called him by his first name before and rarely talked to him. The eulogy was over and the people were filing towards the coffin to leave flowers and say final goodbyes. He cleared his throat, she _had_ to blame him. She _should_ blame him. If Zoe broke away from the graveside to come over and shock him back to reality, she couldn't stand him being here. “Sorry I...”

“I know.” Zoe said. Her eyes were dry because she could cry no more, having spent the last three days practically inconsolable. She was numb now. It gave her the courage she needed to approach him. “I know about you and Dad.”

Nathan felt like the world moved under his feet. _She knew_?

“He didn't tell me, but I knew. You made him happy, he talked about you with a different tone. He was happy.” Zoe said. It sounded so hollow, she barely recognized her own voice. These worlds were being spoken, but not like she imagined it. She imagined it being done with a lot more squealing and teasing. With a celebration of life to be lived instead of the celebration of a life lost.

Nathan was speechless.

“If you're going to save him, I want to help.” She suddenly started bawling again, tears manufacturing quickly for this simple words squeaked out of her tight throat. It felt good. It felt like there was a flicker of hope instead of this sensation of just being lost. “Please..... tell me you can bring him back.”

He was suddenly holding a crying mess of teenager in his arms as she rushed forward and started crying into his suit. His decision was made. “I need to do this on my own, but I'll give anything to make it happen.”

* * *

Nathan had another secret: that was not Jack Carter they buried. They buried an AI carcass he crafted to look like Jack and put Carter in cryostasis while he worked out his plan. Jack's body was persevered, even if he was declared dead. The body was artificially working, even if there was no soul to power it. 

_Time of Death..._

On Main Street Ally had been so worn out, so devastated that she didn't see him put Jack back on portable life support and turn off the monitors. He assured everyone that he'd 'take care of things' as they struggled to come to terms with the loss of their friend. Once in the ambulance he used as much blood as was available to compensate for what leaked out with each artificial beat of that damaged heart. He had the GD team drive him immediately to the morgue, staying in the back to continue to work on the patient himself. Once at GD he went immediately to the Cryo-lab and started the cryogenic freezing process. He was no surgeon, but with what was available at GD he didn't need to be. He patched the heart muscle with a temporary bio-fabric, too experimental to be included with a mobile life support kit. The marriage of frozen fabric and warm muscle had yet to be figured out, but he had his theories he wasn't able to put into practice until then. 

That was three days ago. He had reacted on pure adrenaline and fast thinking, not able to pause to calculate anything or chance losing the ability to _pause_ Jack's death. He was desperate and buying himself time to think and explore possibilities. 

So if he could get his soul back....he could restart the body.

That he was sure of.

How he could get the soul back, was another issue entirely.

He sat in Cafe Diem at the reception by himself and contemplated what it would require to get a soul back from the unknown. Surely modern science scoffed at the possibility and religion made it a forbidden topic, but in the dawn of scientific progress there had been the alchemists who dared defy the taboo. Never successful, but they didn't have what he had access to.

Notably the Artifact.

And if the Artifact was knowledge, then it had _absorbed_ knowledge. So Carter was probably in there. Matter could not be created nor destroyed, energy would be converted into something else. That energy, Jack's energy, was already tethered to the Artifact thanks to Carl Carlson. He, himself, was drawn to it because he too hungered for knowledge and he felt deep down a connection and understanding because of that. He wouldn't waste energy, he wouldn't waste resources, he....wasn't letting Jack go and neither would the Artifact.

This was supposed to be a lesson, he thought he could move the Artifact to another facility to get it away from Kevin. The signs were there that the move was noted and was not appreciated. He pushed on, too concerned about his step-son to worry about what the Artifact would do to out maneuver him. The Artifact was the reason those robots went on a rampage, it was protecting itself from being moved and it unleashed it's army. It had controlled them, it had been trying to kill him. Now, it was going to get what it wanted if it really wanted his life, because he was going to willingly give it up.

That scared him because he questioned his own ability to do something so selfless. It was easy to hypothesize, but when it came time to actualize the exchange he didn't know if he could do it. He had watched Carlson walk into the Artifact chamber with a smile on his face, as if the comfort of God's arms beckoned him and he had no fear. Nathan knew he wasn't Jack. The Artifact knew what it was doing by taking Jack's life and not his.

Except....

_No._

Jack...was _not_ part of the plan. Sure statistics would favor the probability of Jack intervening, but sacrificing his own life to save another would defy the human need for self-preservation. That took a understanding of human nature, it took an understanding of _Jack's_ nature, which was something the Artifact wasn't capable of understanding or anticipating because it was not human.

He closed his eyes and forced himself to relive Jack's last moments again. Not that it wasn't replaying in his mind every time he shut his eyes, but this time he wanted to focus on the details. He tried and failed, unable to focus on anything but the look on Jack's face as he slipped away. Nathan reluctantly opened up the surveillance footage on his tablet. He usually liked to go over footage like this, over and over, but in this instance all he could see was himself _doing nothing_ as Jack lunged in front of him.

_Focus._

The Artifact could have killed him, but it didn't. Years ago it had only released a blast of power to burn him while incinerating Kim. It was a lesson, it was a show of power. It took a life and his job, but left him reasonably unharmed. Sure, the explosion had been caused by sabotage, but the Artifact had controlled it's power. It was protecting itself, it's new home, and the man who had brought it there. It was showing him how little he knew, both about the universe and himself, and about Beverly Barlow. 

That made him think about how many times he replayed that accident in order to understand_ what_ happened, _why_ he was spared, and _how_. So now, he was looking at the video of Jack's death differently- by calculating trajectory. He tapped a few times on the touch screen to start the program needed to highlight the line the bullet took and then added another line for where the bullet _would have hit_ had Jack not been in the way. He took a deep breath and covered his mouth with his hand to stem the tide of emotion. If _he _was the target, not Jack, than the bullet was supposed to hit him in the chest. The program spit out a scenario report, indicating he would have probably suffered a punctured and collapsed lung. But Jack was 3 inches shorter than him and the area impacted was much closer to his heart.

Nathan closed his eyes and double tapped the screen to shut it off. The Artifact wasn't trying to kill either of them, it was trying to make sure he didn't transfer it to the Colorado facility. With a lung injury, he wouldn't have been able to handle the thin air and he would never let the Artifact leave without escorting it to it's new home deep within the mountains.

_Fuck._

He opened his eyes, powered by the anger at himself. He was ready to do what it took to bring Jack back because he was just a casualty of his bad decisions and blind ambition....as always. He saw Kevin sitting in a chair at a table alone, drawing in his journal. He got up and walked over, sitting down beside his step-son and looked at the drawing, hoping he would be doodling Jack. No such luck, but it was the Artifact. _That_ he was sure of. “I need your help, Kev. The Artifact took Jack and I need your help to get him back.”

Kevin stopped drawing.

“If you can communicate with it, ask it what it wants in exchange for Jack.” Nathan said quietly and started writing out an equation on Kevin's journal to make him focus on what he was really asking. He was asking for equivalent exchange. He wrote out a chemical reaction that showed elements being consumed and then merged on the other side. The kid loved problems like this and took over writing for him. He had shared Dactylos's research with him while they were reviewing it because Nathan was being a dick and making a point about it being a childish pursuit, Kevin ate it up. It showed him what he knew already, that there would have to be a sacrifice.

Nathan drew some of the transmutation circles he had seen in Dactylos's lab, notably the one for human transmutation: The one to create a human or bring one back from the dead. He had, unfortunately, had plenty of time to consider what it would take to bring back someone from the dead--no, from _the Artifact_. Kim's death was something he would never forget, only his ego and knowledge that the catastrophic failure of the experiment didn't make sense had saved him from being dragged down by that burden. Sabotage was one thing, but Jack's death was nothing but his own fault. This wasn't an accident he could live with.

Kevin kept drawing. The information being eaten up and returned corrected. A drawing of a man and the artifact enveloping him. An image of another man and the artifact's tendrils reaching out to wrap around his head. He furiously shaded the light and dark, enough to break his pencil in the process. That made him stop and look at his creation and fear gripped him from inside as his Dad's hand gripped his shoulder in affection.

“I'll give it whatever it wants if it gives Jack back.”

Kevin's eyes flashed up to his Dad's in a panic.

“It's OK.” Nathan said softly. “Deconstruction and reconstruction. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, I'm not going anywhere.”

Kevin shook his head emphatically.

“I need him back, Kevin.” Nathan said honestly, probably the most honest he had been with himself since this_ thing _of theirs started. “At any cost.”

Kevin grabbed another pencil and started drawing as fast as his hands would let him. He knew if his Mom came over she would send his Dad away for agitating him. He had to express what the artifact was wanting before it was too late and he couldn't draw fast enough. His body never could keep up with his mind. He looked up at his Dad who watched and understood, sadness in his eyes as he saw the toll that the artifact would take for this exchange.

“I'll do it.” Nathan said and saw the fear in the boy's eyes. He pet his head affectionately. “Come on Kev, nothing's going to change. You've always been smarter than me.”

Kevin shook his head as his Dad hugged him. Frustrated with his inability to communicate, he wrapped his arms around him and squeezed so hard to express himself that his arms ached. He didn't want to lose him. He didn't understand the true repercussions of the toll being paid! He didn't understand what it was like to be...him. An intelligence trapped in a body that was too slow to process his actions, in a world that worked differently than how he thought. What the Artifact wanted was to take his Dad's mind out of reach, just enough that he couldn't access it but knowing he had the answers. It would drive him mad. There was more to alchemy than the chemical understanding of comprehension, destruction and reconstruction....this situation was quite literally mind over matter.

Nathan rested his chin on Kevin's head as he held him, people looked at them as if this was a display of 'normal' behavior for the funeral reception. He knew he would have to move quickly if he was going to get this done. GD was practically empty but wouldn't be for long and he wasn't sure how much longer he could count on his resolve not breaking down. He looked up and saw Zoe, and locked eyes with her then looked to the door to indicate the time was now. “I'll see you around, Kev.”

* * *

Zoe followed Nathan through the empty halls of GD. They were still in the clothes they wore to the funeral and everyone in town was still at Cafe Diem 'celebrating the life of Jack Carter'. A life they took for granted. A life they never thought was worth as much as theirs because he wasn't a genius. It was harsh, but she was entitled to be angry, she knew how they treated 'norms' and Stark had been one of the _worst_ to point out her Dad's failings. 

Which was why she noticed the change in her Dad and Nathan immediately when they started seeing each other. If she could see a thermographic of any room it would show a radiance of warm around them and between them. The looks. The smiles. The banter. The flirting. The reality of it all summed up in the complete change in her Dad. She never said anything, not wanting to ruin it, but was happy for him none the less. Now she was happy that Nathan loved him back, loved him enough to _bring him back_. “Where are we going?”

“Cryogenic lab.” Nathan said and kept walking. “I froze your Dad.”

“We just...buried him.” Zoe said hesitantly. They had an open casket. They buried him.

“A fake.” Nathan said. “I froze him quickly after I got him back to GD, I put him back on life support as soon as they called time of death. It's why I didn't break the news to you myself.”

Zoe had to jog to keep up with him as they rounded the corner and he opened another door. “Don't you need permission from the family to do that?”

“He really should have read those papers he signed when he took the job.” Nathan said with a smile and Zoe cursed under her breath. 

"Dammit Dad."

“I would have told you if I couldn't find a solution.” He assured her.

“What solution is there to being dead?”

“Plenty, or there wouldn't be a form to undead people.” He said and walked into the control center of the lab. Discussing details would not help him now, he needed to remain focused on seeing the experiment through. “What I need from you is to monitor the capsule he's in. I'll show you the panel that monitors his vitals. If this works, you should see a spike and then you can start the unfreezing process. It's pretty simple really, Fargo's grandfather made it so it's just a bunch of buttons.”

“What are you going to do?” She reached out and grabbed his arm. “I want my Dad back, but not if I have to see him miserable. If anything happens to you, you know he's going to carry that with him for life.”

“Zoe, I'm too selfish to sacrifice myself for someone.” Nathan said with a reassuring smile. “No matter how hot they are.”

“I'm not so sure of that.” Zoe said softly. 

“I can't tell you what I'm doing because it's classified.” Nathan answered and handed her his phone. “When your Dad comes back, call Allison immediately. We haven't unfrozen someone from cryostasis since Grandpa Fargo and I don't want Jack complaining about frostbite or suddenly wanting to push every button he comes across. The patch I used to repair his heart will need to be closely monitored once the muscle defrosts and starts working again. Tell Allison the data is on my phone, she'll know how to read my work. ”

"Please, be careful." Zoe she said as he turned and left. She could almost hear her Dad say '_well that can't be good'_'. That made her cry because she knew Nathan's solution was going to come with a heavy price, she knew because it was the first time she could remember that Nathan Stark refused to look anyone in the eye. 

* * *

There was nothing careful about what he was about to do. He had some connection to the Artifact, as did Jack, but Kevin was the recipient of it's wealth of knowledge and power. He had no rational explanation for the feeling he had right now, the instinct that was driving him to go to the artifact chamber and open all the doors and expose himself to the dead husk of the once glowing enigma.

Carlson's words echoed in his memories. _Will you be ready?_

“Give him back.” Nathan said, his voice cracking. He was afraid, there was no denying that, but he also didn't know how to make this exchange it wanted. The Artifact took control of the military prototypes in response to him signing off on the transfer to move it into another facility. It had become part of GD itself, it had to understand more than computer code. “You wanted me, YOU made the mistake and took him instead. Why would you save his life via Carlson's hand only to take it years later. YOU miscalculated his dedication, his humanity. YOU took him anyway because you think it will give you more understanding of humans. YOU are wrong. Jack Carter isn't like any other human being, he's one of a kind, he's not what you want.”

There was silence and Nathan felt himself doubting it all, doubting he could really bargain for Jack's life back. The desperation began to creep in. On chance he reached out to touch one of the chalky spears, hoping that the touch would spark the exchange it demanded. “I am ready! Take it! ”

And it did.

In one breath he felt himself drawn into the void where the artifact existed. His trip there showing him everything...._absolutely_ everything. Knowledge beyond human understanding, his brain operating at full capacity to comprehend a fraction of it, just like Carl Carlson had experienced. He could use all of his senses and then some, and he existed on a higher plane for the moment he was in that void....seeing and feeling everything that it contained.

_All_ the knowledge of the universe, all the answers and all the truths any scientist or alchemist ever searched for. It was intoxicating and terrifying all at once. There was also a heavy pull of emotion, pulling him back and holding him from being lost in the expanse of nothing and everything. He knew without question that it was Kevin tethering him to the world.

Then he felt himself free-falling and being set back to the chamber. That knowledge he craved and the knowledge he had accumulated being sucked out of him as he was thrown back to his own plane of existence. Tears fell, not from the pain, but at the loss of so much he had dedicated his life to. From the ache of losing the answers he spent his life searching for.

However that was what it demanded and that was what he sacrificed: His knowledge.

He didn't know if it meant he would be sucked dry of every bit of cognitive function, but it was the chance he would take. If he was lucky he would simply be of normal intelligence, if he was really lucky it wouldn't drive him insane knowing what he lost.

A life for a life. Simple really.

He took comfort in the fact that Jack would be the one person who wouldn't hold it against him. The one person who would insist he could overcome it all. That was his last thought as he hit the ground, unconscious, in the artifact chamber as the Artifact turned to dust and fell around him.


	2. Deconstruction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this got so long.

_Elixir of Life_

Chapter 2

**Deconstruction**

_"A lesson without pain is meaningless. That's because no one can gain without sacrificing something. But by enduring that pain and overcoming it, he shall obtain a powerful, unmatched heart... A Fullmetal Heart.“ - Edward Elric_

* * *

Allison's phone went off in the middle of reception at Cafe Diem with more alarms than she thought was possible. Everyone turned to her as she disrupted the somber mood with her emergency alerts, with both curiosity and fear. In Eureka there was only one reason for alarms like that and losing their Sheriff had finally made an impact on the accepted risks of their work. She tried her best to silence the phone as she walked to the door and looked around for Nathan . Where did he go? He was _just_ here? A quick scan told her he was gone, he wasn't someone you couldn't miss seeing in any room, so she went to Henry instead. “We have to get to GD.”

Henry nodded as she showed him her phone. Section 5. Never good. He looked around, “Where is Nathan?”

The phone made another noise as it vibrated and she breathed a sigh of relief as she saw what this was for: Nathan was calling. She marched out the door knowing this was going to require a trip to GD no matter what. Henry followed, not wanting to ruin the reception any more than they already had. “Nathan! What the hell is going on?”

Henry almost slammed into her as she stopped. She turned to him, her expression telling him that this was as bad as it sounded.

“No honey, calm down. We're coming.” Allison felt the color drain from her face as Zoe Carter yelled about her Dad and the Cryo-lab and a medical team. “Where is Dr. Stark? Why do you have his phone?”

Henry felt a sinking feeling in his gut. He hadn't spoken to Nathan since Jack's death, words weren't needed to express that he most certainly did blame him for this. He let his anger and emotions ignore the fact that Jack and Nathan had grown close, close enough to make his heart ache right know knowing Nathan did something he shouldn't have. The question was, what the hell did he do?

* * *

After a funeral it is customary to have a reception for the mourners, not for the mourners to have a reception for the recently buried. However this was Eureka and things had a way of working out that way.

Jack Carter was in the medical bay recovering from a slew of stuff he really had to classify under 'things I'd only hear in Eureka'. The surgeon had explained that he had heart surgery, but only in the fact they had to take out some frosty band-aid nanoid and fix some 'crude' incisions that had been made to apply said band-aid. There was also some damage from CPR, the usual broken ribs, but also additional life support nerve damage that was going to require laser therapy and physical therapy to get over. He asked what he needed heart surgery for, and apparently it was _just_ to remove that patch.

Why he had the patch? Oh, apparently he was shot in the heart and killed. _That_ fact came after the unloading of other information, because GD doctors were as bad as the scientists with their interpersonal communications and priority lists. The heart damage had already been fixed by the time the went in to get the patch off. The surgeon sort of ran away because nobody had an explanation for that.

Well it was fixed and he was clueless as to how, and that reeked of Nathan Stark who had yet to make an appearance.

He tried to get the details of what happened, but Zoe wasn't much help as she just laid on him and cried. Abby came in for his funeral and looked like she couldn't make up her mind to be angry or scared that he was alive again and Allison was not much better. Especially when he asked where Nathan was. She told him he was alive and well but undergoing some tests and left the room. Jo had been the most help as she relayed information from Taggart about the frozen band-aid being like the nanoids he used to fix Lo-Jack when he had been hit by a car. Nanoids based on Carl Carlson's research, nanoids that Taggart used to fix _the dog_. Nevermind that those were the same little bugs that had eaten a guy for his carbon content and then turned into an army of Starks. That was years ago, Jo had assured him, but he saw it in her face that he was once again the first human test subject for some GD project. 

Waking up in the infirmary, with little-to-no recollection of how he ended up there, was a frequent enough occurrence that he wasn't terribly overwhelmed. Same old story, different day: Some experiment went wrong. He went to stop it. He got hurt. Just another day in Eureka.

However, more recent memories were filtering back to him now as the drugs wore off. He remembered throwing himself at Nathan when he realized the crazy robot intended to shoot him. Not-so-great at remembering why the crazy robot with the gun was in the middle of town. He did remember the feeling of knowing he was going to die and being unable to say _anything_ as Nathan tried to use his hand to stop blood from pouring out of his chest. Jack reached up now and put his own hand over his heart, over the bandage covering the stitches. His ribs told him not to do that and he put his hand back down.

He really _needed _to see Nathan and was on the verge of yelling about it.

He looked up as Henry came in and he struggled to sit up a bit. Henry looked awful, like it had been a bad couple of days. Well, from what he could gather, it had been. Mainly because the guy's best friend had been killed on Main Street and he was in charge of the funeral services. Everyone was still wearing their funeral clothes, which was something he was just allowing himself to absorb; they came from _his_ funeral, because _he_ had been buried this morning. Oh this job just kept getting better and better with age! Now _h_e was the new Susan Perkins. “Hey.”

“Glad to see you're back among the living, Jack.” Henry went over and took his friend's hand. He tried to sound excited to see him but it fell flat. He was happy he wasn't dead, so damned happy, but he couldn't help but keep thinking about Kim.

“Yeah, nobody wants to tell me _how_ that happened.” The words were labored, this ribs were really making it hard to be emphatic about anything.

“We're not really sure.” Henry said and gave him a tired smile, his emotions were pulled from one extreme to another this week and he was feeling the effects now.

“Yeah, the surgeon said it was _a miracle_ my heart was fixed, and people around here don't use that word lightly.” The guy even went so far as to ask Allison if she was _sure_ he had been shot in the heart. That went so well he was pretty sure she was going to illustrate the puncture on the doctor's own chest using a tablet stylus. Apparently Ally called time of death and tried to save him and she had not recovered from that yet. This was all getting redacted and filed under 'need to know', he knew it. Nathan was going to be the one telling him that too. So where the hell was he?

“Nothing _they_ did repaired the heart tissue, you woke up good as new. Nobody has the answers, Jack.” Henry said. “I was there, I saw you die. I saw the damage on the portable MRI. There is no explanation for this.”

But it was an explanation as to why the staff and everyone was spooked by him. They didn't like things they couldn't explain. He shook his head, people in this town could be so stupid. Every week something new and mysterious happened, people came back to life, robots went haywire and he ended up in this bed 7 times out of 10. Why was this particular instance so different? None of the details mattered, right now he wanted to see one person. So he asked the most important question, “So where is Nathan? He's the one who always has answers.”

“Nathan...” Henry said and saw Jack's face flash with panic. He knew to watch his tone around Jack, he was so keen on picking up on inflection that it was impossible to hide things from him if you didn't act normal. He was too frayed emotionally to put the effort into it and now he slipped up.

“What did he do? Where is he?”

“We don't know.” Henry said honestly. The thing was, neither did Nathan. That wasn't his story to tell though, he had made that promise; made that promise after he tried to choke the answers out of him in his own distressed state. He was so disappointed in himself for his own reactions this week. If he had seen past the connection to Kim, he would have seen Nathan was not acting normal. “He'll be up to see you soon.”

“Ok.” Jack said and left it at that. Everyone being weird seemed to be an odd reaction to him _not_ being dead anymore, but this was GD and he never could predict the mood around here. Nathan being behind all this was at least some comfort because, if anyone could bring someone back from the dead, it was him.

“I better get back to trying to get you answers.” Henry said and squeezed Jack's hand.

Jack watched Henry leave and then looked up at the ceiling and waited. At least Nathan was coming but waiting for him to arrive felt like an eternity. Being dead was a blink of an eye he didn't notice, but waiting on Nathan was what made him feel like he was in limbo forever. There was a time when Nathan used to do this sort of thing as a power play, making him wait on him so he showed him who was in control, but that was a long time ago. _His_ Nathan would have been sitting in the chair beside him when he woke up, tablet in hand and answers to everything on his tongue. Rumpled clothes that said he slept in that chair and a look in his eye that said he was really relieved he was OK but a stern lecture was going to come at some later time.

It was kinda funny that nobody saw this _thing_ of theirs for what it was. Scientists, though, never looked at anything head on.

The pain in his chest was getting worse and he knew the button on the bedrail was for more painkillers, but he knew the meds were the reason he had such a foggy recollection. He'd hold off until he absolutely needed them, right now a little pain helped him jar some memories and recall how he got here. He could remember seeing a gun level at Nathan and the breath being knocked out of him as he threw himself in the way to protect him. He could remember the emotions more than anything; the grip of fear around his heart as he saw Nathan in danger, a rush to intercept, then a different pain in his chest. He could recall looking up as Nathan slid him to the ground, the sound and heat of something exploding, but the feeling of Nathan holding him being all that mattered. He could remember Nathan's hand over his heart and the look on his face that expressed the feeling of fear he had just felt. That scared him, Nathan being scared was never good. He couldn't remember the details from there, they were fuzzy. He, however, did remember the regret.

The real reason he had to see Nathan was not just to assure himself he was alive and well, but to tell him how he really felt before it was too late...again. They were both idiots if they were going to say this thing of theirs wasn't worth the risk. Not now. Of all the incredibly stupid things he had done in his life, this was a top tier example of his idiocy. Every time they had one of those moments, one of those 'I want to spend the rest of my life with you and feel like this forever' moments, they both chose to not push for more. The accepted what they had because it was so frightening to think of losing it that they couldn't find the courage to take another step forward.

Now, he was absolutely certain that he did, in fact, lose it. Lost it to death of all things! So he was going to be damned if he let some fear of them destroying their relationship prevent them from even trying for more. They weren't afraid of what people thought, they were afraid of repeating mistakes from their first marriages when things got complicated and real. When pressures were on for decisions about moving in together instead of the pressure of just saving the world. They worried about how they'd overcome the major obstacle of balancing work and home life that had ruined marriage before. Plus, Nathan was worked up about coming under the scrutiny of some 'relationship auditor' who would probably find the two most powerful guys in town sleeping together being a security risk.

Like that would _ever _happen. He welcomed someone coming into GD and watching them argue and determining that they were cooperating _on anything_.

Still, they had reservations about commitment and a million reasons why things wouldn't work. Excuses, really. It was easier to just escape for pieces of time together away from the world, because they didn't have to deal with who they were in the suit or uniform and they could just be....them.

And that was fucking stupid.

However what they had was so precious that Jack had been as terrified of exposing it to the pressures of their lives as much as Nathan had been. They didn't dare breach the topic of what they meant to each other, utter those words of love or express how badly they ached for each other's presence. That was a silent understanding, talk like that would force one of them to be rational and say 'stop'. It would have been too painful.

So he took a bullet in the chest instead because, that was who he was. He'd do anything to protect the people he cared for, but he wouldn't take the risk to put aside the badge for a bit and invest time in the person he loved. Their whole lives were wrapped so tightly around these jobs of theirs, that they didn't know who they were if that job wasn't part of their make-up. It was like ivy growing around an old brick building, they saw the beauty of the vines clinging to the facade and feared disappointing each other when those vines were stripped off and the structure underneath revealed. _That_ was what kept them apart, the fear of seeing that there was evidence of a foundation issue or a crack going through the bricks started by water damage over the years. The fear of looking naked when the titles and decorative cover were pulled away; a fear of crumbling under scrutiny and being exposed to the elements.

Jack closed his eyes and listed to the sound of the machine that went 'ping' beside his bed. Since when did he get so...thoughtful? Was it dying? Did he see the light and suddenly start thinking in architectural similes? Where the hell was Nathan when he finally had decent thoughts bouncing around his head? He'd love to see the look on his face when he spit out those words.

He opened his eyes and took a breath and winced. It was getting harder to avoid hitting that button and getting a dose of relief. He wanted to be lucid when Nathan arrived, he didn't want that fuzzy feeling to come back. He looked to the door as he heard someone talking, asking a question, and recognized the voice replying. He smiled, hearing Nathan was like a cup of warm cocoa after coming in from shoveling snow in a blizzard.

_God_. What was _with him_ and these similes? He looked up as the door opened and smiled as he saw the man he had been looking for. Nathan Stark made him feel alive and he needed to tell him that.

“Hey.”

“Where have you been?” Jack asked, feeling a smile form. He felt like this was always his reaction when the man entered the room, but now there was a new level of joy at seeing him alive. At being alive _with _him.

“I was under observation for a while.” He drank in the sight of Jack sitting up and breathing....and trying to climb out of his bed like an idiot. He moved to his beside quickly and pushed him back down into the bed.

“They told me you were fine and Allison got that whole 'can't tell you it's classified' thing going...” Jack felt relief as Nathan's hand touched him. “Zoe said you did the 'undeading', but the explanation was not very detailed. Plus she kept crying and making me promise not to die again. Everyone is acting weird so how did you bring me back, genius?”

Nathan bent down and kissed him. No need to be shy about things now. He closed his eyes as the warmth on his lips assured him Jack was back among the living. It had been torture not seeing him, but knowing he had succeeded had kept him from getting angry. “The short version is that I made a bargain with the Artifact to release your consciousness and put it back in the body I patched up while freezing you in the Cryo-Lab.”

“Since when are you that kind of Doctor?” Jack asked with a smirk. That sounded like a load of bullshit, even out of Nathan's mouth.

“I tinker.”

“In _heart surgery_?” Jack asked.

“I made the incision.” Nathan said and glanced down at where it would be, under the hospital gown. “I let the computer do the work to apply the patch. You were partially frozen at the time, no heart surgeon would have been able to work under those conditions anyhow.”

“Not so sure that's a great reason for _not_ getting one.” Jack reached up and stroked Nathan's bearded chin. It was good to feel him close, feel his warm breath as he leaned over him. “Did you at least push your way to the front screaming about being an expert on my heart and make a dramatic show of it? Did I miss out on your public profession of love? Is there video?”

“I stole your just-declared-dead body.” Nathan couldn't help but smile at that. _Idiot_. “I was on my own.”

“Nathan....” Jack felt him holding back and it wasn't because they were finally acting like a couple in hospital room that anyone could walk into at any moment. Something was off. “What _exactly_ did you do?”

Nathan licked his lips, not sure what to tell him beyond what he actually did because at this point there was no answer for 'why' or 'how' he did it. He didn't lose his memories, he lost the thought process that led him to those actions. He felt lost in his own mind, unable to access the facts that lead him to act the way he did. “I told you I used the Artifact.”

“Yeah, you said you made a bargain with it. What kind of bargain?” Jack asked. The rest he let slide. He could hear something in Nathan's voice he couldn't place. 

“Equivalent Exchange.” Nathan said. “For your life, I gave up my own. I gave up everything I worked for. I gave up my capacity to get it back.”

“You did _what?_”

“I'm stupid Jack.” Nathan said with a wink. There wasn't any reason to deny it. “I feel like I'm seeing in black and white now. My mind is firing on a single cylinder. I don't understand a damned thing Ally just told me about your condition and couldn't answer any questions Henry had about what I did.”

“Why would you do that!?”

“To have you back.” Nathan said without remorse.

“That was selfish.” Jack had no idea how to react to that other than with outrage. His life was worth Nathan's brain that had the power to fix the world? No! One life for so many. What the hell!? “I made my decision and that was what I dedicated my life to. I knew I took that risk and I did so willingly. For you to give up being a genius is a crushing blow to the world!”

“Good news is,” Nathan kissed him. “I can still piss you off even though I am stupid.”

“I never asked you to...”

“I love you, so maybe we can be stupid together?” Nathan said and gave a shrug as he uttered those words they were too scared to tell each other. Too scared until it was too late.

“You are taking an IQ test immediately.” Jack stammered. “If you're less than 111 you're getting tutored. You can't take that prize from me.”

“I'm lost Jack.” He admitted. “But not as lost as I was in a world without you.”

“You get dumb and suddenly sound like a Hallmark movie.” Jack said and let his hand fall to his neck. He felt like he was going to cry. Making sacrifices for other people was easy, having them do the same for you was overwhelming. Rare. Love. God, why had it been so hard to admit this to each other? “Good thing you still have your looks.”

“The good news is that the artifact is all fired up again and apparently running purely on my smarts.” He said with a grin. “Dumb as shit but I can power the alien sun in the basement of GD.”

“You'll get it all back. You might have to relearn it, but I can put in a good word with your old teacher.” Jack said and felt himself flush as the impact of what Nathan did for him started to sink in. Nathan gave up his knowledge, his comprehension, the culmination of his life's work. _For him._

“Not how this works.” Nathan said and looked away. Especially since he was _not _on the best terms with Henry now because of Kim. Henry who damned near shook him to death demanding he tell him _how_ he got Jack back with unspoken question being _why_ he didn't do the same for Kim.

“How do you know? _You're _stupid.” Jack said and grinned “You're giving up and not going to even try? If you expect to be a Carter, you're going to have to change that attitude.”

“Changing my name out of shame, am I?” Nathan asked, thankfully he could still banter with Jack. Thank God he didn't lose that capacity. Their insults were playful now, a carry over from work that they amused themselves with. “Do we get 'I'm with stupid' shirts next?”

“You're moving in with us because you're not going to have a job because you're dumb.” Jack explained. “Try to follow.”

“You're enjoying this?”

“While I can.” Jack said and rubbed his cheek. “Before I start crying because I'm in love with an absolute idiot.”

“I just gave my lifetime of learning and research to bring you back to life!” Nathan finally got mad.

“You gave it to an alien in the basement, that's pretty irresponsible.”

“Well...” Nathan felt himself hit a mental wall. He watched Jack's reaction and couldn't help but forget that pain of not being able to explain what the Artifact really was, if just for a moment.

“OOOH! I stumped you!”

“You_ are _enjoying this.”

“I thought I lost _this._” Jack said and pulled him down to kiss him as tears started to form. “This once in a lifetime thing we have that we were so scared of losing. Over what? Our jobs? This town? What the hell was scarier than laying there looking at you unable to tell you what you meant to me?”

“Losing you.” Nathan admitted. “Realizing you weren't invincible. Realizing all my decisions had repercussions and that I was scared of my feelings for you compromising my ability to make those decisions.”

“It is really_ that_ hard for you to stop being such an asshole?” Jack asked and sniffled, wiping away tears that were suddenly clouding his vision. “You could try not scaring everyone into producing results around here. I mean...it might cut down on how much I get hurt and increase how much time I could be spending with you after work. Just a thought?”

“For the record I'm not _currently_ head of GD because I was in the Artifact chamber surrounded by alien dust and I'm still not cleared to come back.” Nathan said, just to see Jack smile instead of cry. He couldn't stand the tears right now, he wasn't sure he wouldn't completely fall apart.

“I thought you said it was working again?”

“It turned to ash around me, a robot retrieved me and as soon as the doors closed it reformed, re-concentrated and started glowing gain.” Nathan shrugged. They showed him footage of it. The Artifact had him removed from the chamber so it wouldn't destroy him when it came out of it's dormant state. He didn't know what that meant and took comfort in the fact that he knew he would have been just as confused when he wasn't stupid. Henry however, didn't take it as well.

“Wow.” Jack said and blinked away his tears. “So, you're telling me that you turn _everyone _on?”

“That's just fact.” Nathan chirped back, feeling like his old self.

“Well the Artifact didn't take your ego, I guess even _it_ doesn't have the storage capacity to handle that.”

Nathan looked at him, that smile and that warmth. He drank in the look of adoration and awe and told himself that he had to remember that _this_ was the fuel that would keep him moving from here on. He lost his ability to see the world as Nathan Stark-the genius; where the components of it all could be improved on or learned from. Maybe he could enjoy the view and appreciate what was already in front of him? He wished that mere thought wasn't met with his own doubt so quickly, but the Artifact didn't change him as a person-- it only took a piece of him away.

“We'll figure it out, Nathan.” Jack said and took his hand seeing the light dim in his eyes so quickly, _too_ quickly, as he thought about their situation. Jack had grown to love the arrogance and infuriating intelligence that was Nathan Stark, which ironically is why he initially hated him. If you loved him you had to, it was so much of him because he did see the world, and everything in it, differently. He broke it all down into it's most basic elements and studied it, seeing beauty where the eye could not see, and comprehending things that were far beyond the reach of an average man like him. However, he didn't keep it for himself, he shared it. He helped. He made so many new and incredible things to make lives better. He loved this man so much and it already hurt to see him like this. “We always do. We're a hell of a team.”

“I'm not sure I qualify for my position on that team anymore.” Nathan said and closed his eyes. “I feel like I'm walking around in the dark looking for something in a familiar room, but unable to find it.”

“Then open your eyes, _idiot._”

Nathan had to smile, Jack knew how to make him smile. The humor, his optimism, this way of seeing things as they were instead of mentally calculating what it took to fix it and improve....it was unique to him. He could still remember the day that he started to appreciate that instead of resenting and mocking it. Results didn't lie and Jack got things done, which meant there was something to his method. That had been their turning point, that was when they began to appreciate each other, when they realized that their different approaches saw a unique perspective of the same situation. Not wrong, but a new viewpoint. Nathan mocked him for his simplicity but at the same time envied him for being able to see only the surface where as he had already dove in and lost himself in the depths. He opened his eyes and looked at him, leaned over and kissed him and lost himself in the man he gave it all up for.

* * *

Jack had a week in the infirmary before he was allowed to go home and Nathan had stayed 'under observation' in order to be with him. He put up appearances of still being the head of GD, his glare went a long way to keeping people from asking too much, but most kept their distance because they thought he had truly brought their Sheriff back from the dead. Leave it to Nathan to be put on an even higher pedestal for all of this. The reality of it was that Nathan had a week to busy himself at GD reviewing surveillance and data to try and make sense of things. Allison had agreed to perform tests to give him an idea of what he truly lost. MRI, brain wave activity, blah blah. Brain was still there, but it's processing ability was greatly diminished.

“So it's like a computer with an obsolete processor and a corrupted hard drive?”

Jack looked up from the beer in his hand and over at his daughter. He was adjusting to being home after having a lot of time to think to himself while he healed, so it kinda startled him that those were not his thoughts. It was good to be home though, even better because Nathan drove him home and was making dinner now. It was a start. “Ironic the artificial intelligence guy has processor issues, huh?”

“Hilarious.” Nathan said dryly and didn't even look up from what he was doing.

“_Maybe_ you just opened a back door to the Artifact in order to utilize it's processing and storage capacity to achieve complete enlightenment.” Zoe said from the couch.

“Don't talk about back door access, it will make your Dad jealous.” Nathan said as he stirred the sauce. He was focusing now on what abilities he still had and first thing he wanted to do was see if he lost his notoriously refined palate. He was approaching this situation as a scientist, because there was comfort in that. This experiment would tell him if he still could comprehend the basic chemical reactions in cooking and taste the difference when it was done. He was also doing it distracted because, this was not his kitchen, S.A.R.A.H. kept trying to help, Zoe was reveling in delight at having her Dad's boyfriend over and Jack was just sitting there drinking a beer and drinking it all in.

“Ew.” Zoe said and then turned and glared at the guy. “Did the Artifact take your understanding of what _not_ to say in front of someone's teenage daughter?”

“I'll say the Artifact might be glowing because of an entirely separate reason if it tapped into that knowledge.” Nathan smirked and she glared at him. He had to admit, this was good therapy. Having dinner with Jack and Zoe kept him from dwelling in his mostly empty thoughts and he loved the chaos that was the Carter household. Staying here was not entirely his idea, it was the conditions they agreed to in order to be released from GD, and S.A.R.A.H was closely monitoring them and reporting back. He'd get her feedback about his cooking later.

“You're getting a Nobel prize out of this somehow. I know it.” Jack raised his beer in a mock salute to Nathan but those eyes didn't hold the same arrogance anymore, they had dulled. That scared him but he kept telling himself that there had to be trauma from this, that there was no way anyone could just go back to being themselves when they felt like they were in a stranger's mind. It didn't stop him from trying. “Though I don't know what field of study alien Porn Hub falls under.”

“More than one, make room on your wall.” Nathan said with false bravado, at least he could still feel a flicker of what it was like to be confident in himself even though he knew when asked he wouldn't be able to answer _how_. He just knew he had to get that look of fear out of Jack's eyes, he couldn't stand seeing him look at him like that.

“So, you're moving in with us?” Zoe asked, they were incredibly adorable together. She and Nathan had been talking about his condition and she appreciated it on many levels: the science and the sacrifice. He was willing to talk to her as an equal and she was trying to help him access that part of his brain again by talking through all of it.

“I have to, I don't know where I live.” Nathan said and their smiles vanished. He smirked, “Joking.”

Jack threw a towel at him. “Asshole.”

“So are you _really_ going to move in with us?” Zoe asked.

Nathan looked over at her hopeful face, she really wanted to see her Dad happy and was pushing them so hard to not fall back into the shadows where they had been hiding their relationship for years. Jack was just released from the hospital today. Right now he had no idea what he was going to do about anything. He sighed. “Not just yet. Losing my knowledge is really...surreal. I need to test the boundaries of what I do still know. I also need to feel like _something_ hasn't changed, especially since I don't feel at home in my own damned head right now. I'm not ready to move just yet. I need familiar surroundings.”

Jack fidgeted on his stool, not comfortable with the depths of discussions that Nathan was readily having with his daughter who he never realized absorbed so much of her Mother's profession. Nor that she had grown up so much. Nor that she was so brilliant that she could read through Nathan's thesis for his first doctorate and understand it well enough to explain it to him. Talk about surreal.

“That's really healthy and understandable.” Zoe said and tapped her pencil on her notebook as she sketched out diagrams of Nathan's own work so he could digest it easier.

“I'm not known for my healthy coping mechanisms or understanding.” Nathan replied and shut off the stove and plated dinner. “I am known for _this_ meal being a specialty of mine so I hope it doesn't taste like garbage.”

“One time...._one time_ I catch a fish that feasted on GD trash and you never let me live it down.” Jack exclaimed.

“I told you that wasn't a catfish.” Nathan replied and handed him his plate.

“You told me something in_ Latin_!”

“Typically, scientists don't name their prize ecological clean-up hybrids 'TrashFish' because they want to be taken seriously when they apply for that Nobel.”

“No, they name it Ariel and end up on the shores of Lake Archimedes with their entire family crying over the loss of their pet garbage collector.”

“This _is_ Eureka.” Nathan said and pulled out Jack's chair for him at the dinner table as he slowly made his way over. GD technology did wonders for healing him faster than normal, but those ribs were still going to bother him for a while. Especially with how expressive he was.

“Speaking of Eureka,” Zoe said and sat down where Nathan placed the plate in front of her. “Why is everyone buying that you have select amnesia and that Dad's death was faked so you could rat out some mole in GD?”

“Probably because it's happened before?” Jack offered.

“I'm on medical leave for a month.” Nathan said and sat down and looked at his plate, feeling anxious about tasting it and finding out the pork tenderloin tasted like the TrashFish. He knew he cooked it perfectly and paid extreme attention to the sauce. One thing to cross off his list of concerns was his memory recollection. “Artifact related mishap, nobody will question it and they don't have high enough clearance to even know about it. After that, I have options to go on sabbatical or step down. Either of those options will require producing research and results that I'm no longer able to do. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do.”

“You're getting your intelligence back, is what you're doing.” Jack said and stuck his fork into the tenderloin and sliced it with his knife. He placed it on his tongue and made a show of chewing and thinking about it. “It still tastes like fancy pork to me.”

“So much for death and resurrection giving you the ability to enjoy the finer things in life.” Nathan mumbled. He played with his fork and knife, not quite ready to see the results of his test quite yet.

“Well, how about this?” Jack said and took another piece of pork. “I don't have a Nobel prize in math but I am pretty sure that exchanging your brain that could save _so many_ lives for my _one_ life is not a fair exchange. Doesn't add up.”

“Can you please appreciate my sacrifice?” Nathan asked.

“Like you appreciated mine?” Jack shot back.

“You _died_.”

“So you wouldn't!”

“Arguing with you does make me feel intelligent, thank you Jack.”

“Anything for you, dumb_ass_.”

Nathan finally cut into meal and took a deep breath and took a bite as Zoe laughed at them. He waited, waited for his taste-buds to pick up on all the subtle flavors and breathed a sigh of relief as he did indeed pick out the shallot and wine in the sauce. Taste buds were physical, as were olfactory receptors, but he doubted his brain would have saved that information and been able to translate it. The Artifact didn't file that under knowledge worth taking. It left him his ability to appreciate the world in one respect. He looked up and noticed both the Carters looking at him, studying him with a eerily similar look. “I'm going to celebrate with that Scotch I brought over now that I know I can actually taste it.”

“So one experiment down.” Zoe said cheerfully. “Did you want to do my chemistry homework to see how much you can still master?”

“Oh my God.” Jack said and snorted in amusement at his daughter. “You think he's that dumb? That he's going to start doing your homework for you and that I'm going to be okay with it?”

“It was his idea.” She growled.

“What?!?”

Nathan got up and went for the bottle of Scotch that he brought from his office and was happy he wasn't going to waste it by drinking it. If he wanted to endure that kind of pain he'd have given it to Jack who always winced when he drank it and then washed it down with cheap beer. He loved him, but they were not the same when it came to tastes. “I'm not doing it _for_ her, I'm going to see how much I can work through and what grade I get.”

“You're going to _hand it in_?” Jack asked. “You're going to get her expelled!”

Nathan grabbed the bottle and walked back over to the table. “Are you purposely acting more dumb than normal for my benefit or did part of your brain remain dead when you were revived?”

Jack smiled and watched Nathan pour himself his favorite drink and go through the ritual of enjoying the scent and taste of everything that was trapped in the bottle with it. He was happy this part of him was still there, he wasn't sure he'd survive another cardiac event if he had a heart attack because Nathan was drinking his cheap ass beer.

They kept conversation light for the rest of dinner, purposely avoiding heavy topics like Jack's death or Nathan's inability to negotiate contracts while under emotional distress. Jack felt that pang of regret resurface nonetheless, that ache of what could have been if he had just admitted to himself and Nathan that what they had was worth dying for. He was mad at himself because _knew_ better, seeing loss of a loved one was part of his job, he had seen so many people realize they took someone for granted after they lost them. He was so hung up on that feeling, that he couldn't appreciate that Nathan was here, having diner with his family and talking about chemical reactions in cooking with his daughter. Maybe they were both going to need time to adjust from this trauma.

After cleaning up dinner, Nathan tried to do chemistry homework and ended up drinking more Scotch than Jack had ever seen him casually drink. That was when he decided to take the bottle way, push the homework aside and tell his boyfriend it was time for bed. It wasn't nearly as weird as he thought it would be, in fact Zoe looked really scared and sad about how badly the homework thing went. It had finally hit her exactly how much Nathan paid to have him back. So Jack said goodnight and brought the love of his life to his own bed for the first time.

Nathan just flopped on the bed. He wasn't planning to stay the night, despite orders to stay under observation, and he wasn't planning to drink so damned much as he tried to focus on the questions on a high school chemistry assignment. “Is that what's it's like for you? To read those questions and just get lost halfway through them? Like you can't piece the words together because they lost meaning? Am I alone in this?“

“I don't exactly try.” Jack said and sat on the bed awkwardly because he was still recovering from broken ribs. He ignored the fact that the statement would have been an insult once upon a time. He knew that the Nathan he was now would never belittle his thought process. This was a genuine question and he had to be honest with his replies. Nathan sounded so lost and it hurt that it was because of him. “I get it translated.”

“It's not helping. I had to concentrate so hard to determine what was being asked and then when I thought I figured it out... the answer was just out of reach.” Nathan bit his lip. “I have never felt like this. Everything has been so easy, if it's a puzzle I thrive on the challenge. No....I _have_ felt this. I felt like this when I was in the Artifact chamber...except opposite.”

Jack rubbed his knee. Nathan was struggling with words whereas his own mind was coming up with eloquent metaphors for everything. This felt like there was more to this bargain than anyone thought. He didn't say what he was thinking because Nathan was not in the best place right now.

“In the void, there was _so much_ that words were obviously too simplistic to have any value in an explanation of it all. Then at dinner, I was sitting at the table looking at words that used to have meaning but I'm too simple to comprehend them. Does that....make sense?”

“Kinda?” Jack said. He ran his hand through Nathan's hair and massaged his scalp, as if it was a headache plaguing him instead of some enigmatic entity in Section 5. He was asking _him_ if things made sense? _God_, this was going to take some adjusting to get used to. “So you got your brain opened up to complete enlightenment, like Zoe said? Like Carl Carlson did? So you used more than your normal percentage of brain to process everything?”

“Yeah.” Nathan smiled. Having his head pet felt nice. Being understood felt better. Referencing something intelligent he had said in the past felt great.“I can remember the feeling, understanding that words were not capable of holding that kind of meaning. That there was some telepathic kinda exchange happening so that I just _understood _it instead of having it told to me and having to process it.”

“Nathan, we've been here before.” Jack said with a smile. “_Carlson._ We just need to talk to him. If he's tapped into the Artifact and understands all this, then he can help. Where is he?”

Nathan groaned. He wasn't sure if it was his diminished mental acuity or slight inebriation that made him slip up and let Jack latch on to Carlson.

“Don't tell me I don't need to know.” Jack said. “You gave this up for me, I need to know how to help get it back.”

“Jack...” Nathan opened his eyes. _Fuck! _ He wasn't used to thinking this slow and being a step behind his own mouth. “Carlson's _in_ the Artifact. I lied to you about him being transferred. He walked into the Artifact and was consumed by it.”

“Oh.” Jack stopped petting Nathan's head.

There was only the truth now, God help him. “During that Carlson situation, you were shot on Main Street by one of the GD security guys.”

“I saw the video.” Jack said quietly. What were the odds of him getting shot at the same place, _twice?_

“We brought you to GD and you were dying. Carlson said he could heal you if he got close to the Artifact. And he did.”

“Oh....OK.” Jack closed his eyes. He had a bad feeling about all these connections back to the Artifact. He had a uneasy feeling about so much of this situation reminding of of previous events in Eureka.

“After Carlson saved you, he walked into it and vanished, presumably killed. I buried the evidence and because that is what _I_ do. Couldn't erase the memories though, it's always been in the back of my mind.” Nathan said. “He saved your life...or the Artifact did. I knew you had a connection to it because of that. I knew it didn't want you dead. “

“So what changed?” Jack opened his eyes and looked down at Nathan. Turning his body to look at him hurt but he wanted to see his face because he wasn't sure how to feel about any of this. These were the kinds of decisions and secrets that had them truly believing they couldn't live together because they had a different set of standard operating procedures.

Nathan looked at him, Jack's posture telling him his cracked ribs really were bothering him more than he let on. “I tried to move the Artifact away from Eureka because it has a connection to Kevin that was worrying. I was scared about him becoming another Carlson. So the Artifact recreated the event on Main Street, on the anniversary of Kim Anderson death...down to the exact time. Except it was not supposed to happen to you, that bullet was for me.”

Worse. This was all getting _way_ worse! Jack wasn't even going to get pissed about not knowing about the Kevin connection because they had kept their distance from each other and each other's lives up until now. “OK, but you almost became it's victim too?”

“Almost.” Nathan ran his hand over his face. Now he was confined to Eureka because he couldn't go back to the real world without his knowledge. He could fake it here, he could fake it for years. It got what it wanted. “I have been spared more than a few times.”

“What the hell are you playing with Nathan?” Jack asked. This was all beginning to sound like one of those myths about old Gods that existed purely to screw with humans and lure them into dumb bargains for laughs.

“I can't answer that. I could never answer that.” Nathan sighed. “It was my obsession because I wanted to know what it _was_ and know what it _knew_, and I got my wish. Even if it was just a brief moment I saw it all. Now I'll be obsessed with what I used to know and it's still in the same damned place: the Artifact.”

“Nathan...” Jack sat there and finally digested everything and tried to not get too forceful with his words as it would hurt his ribs to talk with that much anger needed. This was why they drove each other crazy, this was why they took a step back whenever they thought about moving forward. “What you're telling me is that we were in a hostage situation and you gave the enemy all your intelligence in exchange for _one_ life. An unknown enemy who wanted to keep us where it wanted us and was doing so, by force. Now it knows everything you knew and you are our greatest weapon, the one person who can outmaneuver and out think everyone.”

Nathan groaned. _Goddammit._ “Don't think like a cop, Jack. Think like a scientist. That wealth of knowledge is _right there_....”

“I _am_ a cop. “ Jack interrupted. “I am seeing that you got played and now we're captive here because the Artifact wants to stay here. It still has a hold of Kevin and it knows about everyone here because _you_ knew. We can't defeat it now!”

“First off, there is nothing malicious about the Artifact. It's like a cornered animal lashing out to defend itself.” Nathan felt that truth more than anything and he didn't want to second guess that the Artifact was making him feel that way. “Second, YOU Jack Carter are the greatest weapon Eureka has and you are nothing if not predictably unpredictable.”

“You're just saying that to avoid being lectured about being taken advantage of.”

“No, it's the truth. It's what got you shot. You were not the target. It could not predict your irrational moves and you were a casualty. It was looking to stop me in an effort to communicate, because I didn't listen to the other ways it was sending a message. It was a last resort. I also believe the Artifact is what healed your heart, just like it healed you the first time with Carlson. I can't tell you why, I just know because I have seen it's power. I've seen you hurt time and time again and bounce back because of it. I don't know what the Artifact wants but it doesn't want us dead.”

“Well, as weird as this sounds...I think you're relying on your feelings and instinct whereas my experience is telling me this is a _major _disaster looming on the horizon.” Jack huffed.

Nathan looked up as Jack winced, he was getting worked up and his ribs were not in any shape to be expanding with the breaths needed be that emphatic. He sat up and kissed him. Kissed him to make him feel better and then kissed him harder because he released he had yet to do so. Yet to kiss the man he couldn't live without, kiss him and make him feel that love he had for him. “I don't want this to be our first night together in your house. I don't want to argue.”

“Then there is something _really_ wrong because you_ always_ want to argue.” Jack said softly as he leaned into him.

“Well I can't handle losing an argument to you right now.”

“We're a mess.”

“We knew we would be.”

Jack bit his lip. Why was it easier to sacrifice their lives _for_ each other than to figure out our lives _with_ each other. He wasn't giving up this second chance, no matter how hard it was going to be. And it was going to be hard. “Help me get my shirt off and re-wrap my bandages?”

“I'm not that kind of doctor.” Nathan replied smugly and got a thumb jabbed into his ribs for that. Then he realized there was truth to that. “I'm actually... not entirely confident in my abilities to do that right now.”

“You do this all the time.”

“And we've talked about you doing this to me, _all the time_, however I tended to your wounds with the knowledge of a...” Nathan got slapped in the face with a shirt.

“Listen.” Jack said as he watched Nathan take his shirt and lay it on the bed instead of balling it up and tossing it in the hamper. Same Nathan in that respect. “If you saw the appalled look on the heart surgeon's face when he talked about the _crude _incision that he had to fix, you wouldn't be so worried about losing that so-called medical expertise.”

“I doubt he's had to work with a partially frozen body and a recently reprogrammed automatic autopsy robot, now has he?” Nathan mumbled as he stood up.

“Yeah, you're the one with the globally recognized reputation for _cold-hearted_ decisions at GD. How dare anyone question your authority on the subject.” Jack smirked.

“Why bother rebandaging you?” Nathan chirped back, playfully. “I think I'm going to trade you back for what I gave up to save you. Probably lost value in the last week, but I'll deal with the small portion of what I get back. Only a matter of time before you throw yourself off a bridge or in front of a bullet anyway.”

“Mmm.” Jack said as Nathan came over and gently pushed him up against the wall and kissed him. He tried to not breath too deep as he did so, Nathan's pressed his body so softly against him so he wouldn't hurt him.

“Can't live with you, can't live without you.” Nathan mumbled amused that that saying had meaning now. He carefully began to unwrap the bandages and wondered where the hell the supplies were that they sent Jack home with. “So where does that leave us?”

“For right now, it makes me late for my pain medication and really tired.” Jack replied as the bandage started to pull away and reminded him of how much he hurt. “You're _really_ high maintenance.”

“Let's get you bandaged up and to bed.” Nathan said with another kiss. “This was not how this night was supposed to go.”

“Yeah, you were planning on going home.” Jack snorted, because he knew Nathan too well. The agreement to stay at the bunker under S.A.R.A.H's watch was total bullshit. He was going home and burying his nose in books until he passed out from lack of sleep or food or world ending emergency.

“Sorry, I didn't think you were up to the romance and 'thank God you're not dead' sex.” Nathan said and went for the first aid kit that just happened to pop out of the nightstand. Bandages were clearly downstairs and the house didn't want to disrupt their talk. “I swore to myself this would be different now that I almost lost you and yet here were are, same old routine.”

“It's us though.” Jack said and Nathan quirked an amused eyebrow. “And I'm regretting all the time we lost thinking we couldn't make this work.”

“Me too.”

“So you'll stay tonight?”

“You'll probably arrest me for being too drunk to drive if I don't.” Nathan said and watched Jack's face light up with a grin. Yeah, they knew each other pretty well. “So let's see this horrible incision I made and get it rebandaged.”

* * *

Jack went back to work in another week, and nobody complained. He was impossible to keep still and having him return to work and be on desk duty seemed the best option. Nathan wasn't so lucky as his own job required him to have a knowledge of things he no longer had. Allison took over as interim director and he spent his time in his own house or lab trying to figure out the extent of his loss.

What he wasn't counting on was so many people being mad to him for his sacrifice.

Jack didn't believe he was worth it, which caused some friction in their already unsteady relationship. Henry only spoke to him when he had questions about the 'incident' and clearly felt he had the ability to bring back Kim from the dead or at least prevent her death. Ally, well her being upset with him was nothing new, but she was curt in their interactions because Kevin was still changing. He was supposed to get the Artifact away from Kevin and instead he chose to save Jack.

Everything was understandable, he had to at least give them all that. It just came at a bad time because he was struggling with his identity. It was the one time he didn't want to be alone with his thoughts, or lack there of. If that wasn't odd enough, he found the most receptive people to his condition were the kids; Zoe and Kevin had been his salvation.

Zoe was relentless in her attempts to tutor him as well as tether him to the Carter family. She was obviously frustrated with both him and her father but was doing her best to keep that to glares instead of yelling. He wanted to tell her that this was how they had always been and they didn't know how to break the cycle; they'd come together to forget the world and then go their separate ways after. The problem was, that when Jack wasn't in the world anymore...he refused to accept that they were separated forever. He could blame his reluctance to fully commit to being with Jack on a myriad of things, and there would always be a reason. There would always be excuses, ludicrous from the man who didn't accept laws of nature and resurrected his boyfriend.

According to Zoe, it was exactly _why_ he needed to 'throw himself' at Jack Carter. Although he found her terminology amusing and had smirked and changed topic, he knew she wasn't wrong. Right now he felt like an overwhelming burden on him and that wasn't fair. Jack didn't care about his IQ or job, but he didn't deserve to be caught up in this tempest of emotions either. One thing he knew for certain was that he didn't want Jack feeling guilty, so he did his best to act 'normal' when they did spend time together. Jack saw through it but it wasn't like he wasn't hiding his own emotions either.

His solution to this was to hurry himself into accepting who he was now. He was going to have to learn to think differently, access other skills in order to get the answers he ached for and determine if he wanted to go out on a high note and end his career now. Bringing someone back from the dead was certainly hard to top, there wasn't a soul in Eureka who would argue that, and if he chose to leave GD and concentrate on his own 'research' it would go unchallenged. That was a last resort, as he didn't want to rely on memorizing his own studies and published papers and going on the lecture circuit for a living.

Due to his medical leave, he had a lot of free time that was even freer considering he couldn't work on anything. Ally immediately offered to let him pick up Kevin from school instead of letting him go to the sitter and it was heavily implied that he was expected to still work on detaching the kid's consciousness from the Artifact. What he wasn't counting on was Kevin being more receptive to him because his own thoughts and research were now contained within said Artifact.

He didn't need his brain working at full power to comprehend how incredible that was. Especially when Kevin started showing him drawings that broke down his old work into digestible picture book level material. He found himself enthralled with his sessions with Kevin now, as they still used his off site lab to work, as the tables turned and Kevin became the teacher instead of the student. They worked silently, a deep understanding passing between them, and Nathan spent the majority of his afternoons and early evenings working in the lab with his son.

It should have been a dream come true, but that was not how he was wired. Knowledge had been like an unquenchable thirst for him and that didn't go away. Kevin tried to reshare and reteach what he could access in the Artifact and slowly Nathan began to wonder if this was the real price of his bargain.: to have the life he dreamed of with his family and Jack but to be so unconfident and lost within himself to enjoy any of it.

* * *

To Nathan's credit, being stupid made him way more tolerant of things. Jack was amazed it only took a month of being dumb and being tutored on the very basics of scientific fields that he once mastered to finally blow up. S.A.R.A.H. had sounded the alarm, told him the bunker was being trashed and who to blame for that. Nathan came over early to start dinner and had clearly snapped. Jack came home as fast as he could and found Nathan on the floor of the kitchen trying to pull his hair out with his own frustrated fingers. He sat down with him and Nathan swatted his hands away. “So I guess we should probably stop avoiding talking about _the thing_.”

“Jack, don't start.” Nathan said, anger at himself still boiling through his veins. He tried cooking without relying on memory and tried something new. It didn't go well. “I'm hollow at my core and collapsing in on myself because my entire identity, _my entire life_ , has been molded around me being a scientist.”

“That sounds super science-y.”

“You're not helping.”

“Nor is the Scotch.” Jack said and picked up the empty bottle on the floor.

“I don't know who I am anymore.” Nathan said.

“This doesn't have anything to do with your 30 days of leave being almost over and you having to make a decision about your position at GD, huh?” Jack asked and played with Nathan's hair.

“Of course it does, _idiot_.”

Jack smiled and sank to the floor beside him, then pulled him into a hug as he sat down.

“Not how you expected our relationship to advance, is it?” Nathan mumbled. He felt horrible being this way, especially since it was well worth the price of bringing Jack back to life, but he didn't feel like the man holding him was judging him or questioning him. He was being supportive. He enjoyed the warmth of the embrace and the warmth of love emanating from Jack. He could talk out his emotions now, which was so infuriating because he had so many emotions he couldn't put into words.

“Well in my version I made you stupid by fucking you senseless in bed and sucking your brain out through your dick, but I never expected our relationship to go as planned.”

“Well, it _is_ Eureka.” Nathan said. “It's like the town charter expressly forbids Jack Carter's good intentions from working out.”

“Yeah, it's Eureka and Nathan Stark's questionable intentions usually do work out, so there should be a way to fix this.”

“Jack...”

“You're an artificial intelligence guy, why can't we just make a computer connection to link to your brain like that Melanoma thing Fargo had?” Jack asked. He had been reviewing every case he and Nathan worked together and looking for connections to the Artifact. He had tried to talk to Henry but the man was still so distant. Allison wasn't sure how to handle Kevin being so attached to Nathan now, either, and he felt like that had more to do with this Artifact connection than Nathan almost being dead Dad #2. That left him with a not a lot of options for answers as all the smart people were being stupid. _Again_. Because that had happened before too. Ugh, he had a really bad feeling about this.

“Jack, that sounds idiotic, even to me.” Nathan mumbled and rolled his eyes.

“Actually, Sheriff Carter is correct.” S.A.R.A.H said sweetly.

“Not you too.” Nathan moaned. “I made the trade, willingly, why can't you all accept that?”

“In Eureka?” Jack asked and laughed. “_Really_?”

“Respect my sacrifice, god dammit!” Nathan snapped.

“You didn't respect mine, asshole!” Jack shot back.

“Zoe and I have been working on a computer program to link you to a server where the data from the Mental Mouse incident was stored. Douglas is working on the patch and interface, trying to modify it to allow you to connect and use the information as a literal _artificial_ intelligence.” S.A.R.A.H informed them in a delighted voice.

“I'm dumb, but still not letting Fargo tamper with my brain again.” Nathan rolled his eyes.

“You were actually brilliant when you let him do it the first time, so...” Jack shrugged.

“Jack...” Nathan sat up and ran his hand through his hair. “I made a bargain, I don't know what will happen if I try to find a loophole in the contract. I won't risk losing you, I'll just have to adapt to the new me and....”

“Listen, if this Artifact really did power back up because it has your brain power, than it's going to find it pretty clever that we're using your field of study to fix this problem.” Jack said and kissed his lips. He left out the part where the melanoma nanite problem made him worry the Artifact was dreaming of world domination too. “I happen to know you're impressed and slightly aroused by being shown up by someone of lesser intelligence. Someone with his stupid every-man logic and ability to manage geniuses of Eureka into doing something to fix the problem they made.”

“I feel like there is flattery and insult in that statement, but that I'm blinded by how much I love you to look into it too much.” Nathan said.

“Good.” Jack said.

“Or it could be the Scotch.”

“Ass.”

“It won't work, Jack.” Nathan said. “The Artifact knew I was trying to move it, it has a connection to GD's computers.”

“See, all of this sounds _so bad_.” Jack said. “Everything you keep telling me is like a new warning light going off saying 'Danger, Danger'! It's deja vu all over again!”

"That's...not how that phrase is supposed to be used even if it's a baseball quote." Nathan said with his smug smile and Jack kissed him for it.

“The Artifact has not compromised _me_.” S.A.R.A.H said proudly.

“Well at least _your_ virginity remains intact.” Jack sighed. Oh the things he never thought he'd have to worry about. 

“Secure back up servers are all over Eureka.” S.A.R.A.H said. “Including the one where the Mental Mouse backed up it's information. I cannot link you to the wealth of knowledge that is in GD, however I can give you access to your own brain backup without compromising anything.”

“Did you really back up _your_ _brain_?” Jack asked after a minute of silence as they digested that new information.

“No.” Nathan said and looked at Jack.

Jack shook his head, “_Fargo...._”

“It will only be up until that event with the Mental Mouse, Nanites and the multiple Starks. After the Nanites were destroyed and the patch was removed the streaming stopped.” S.A.R.A.H assured them then whispered, “Your secret affaire is still safe.”

“I'm pretty sure it recorded how damned jealous I was of Jack and Ally kissing, and not for the reasons you all originally thought.” Nathan huffed. “And that my erotic dream wasn't about her.”

“So...um...” Jack filed that away for later. They never did talk about when this attraction began and he was embarrassed to admit that he lusted for Nathan immediately upon seeing him with his shirt off in the infirmary on day one. That was a definite discussion for later because he knew it would result in a strip tease of some kind. “When you say the information is only up _until_ that point and we can connect him to it, does that mean he keeps his memories of the last few years or just gets restored to a previous save point? Like when my computer installed bad updates or you get killed in a video game?”

“It's _Fargo_, what do you think?” Nathan rolled his eyes.

“Hey, I'm not asking you.” Jack said and gave him a playful shove.

“Well I'm definitely not doing it now.” Nathan snorted.

“I...can't answer that Sheriff.” S.A.R.A.H. replied. “We have not run trials.”

“Call a meeting.” Jack instructed his house. “Let Zoe know that we want in on her project.”

“Jack!”

“Nathan!” Jack grabbed him by the chin and looked in the eyes. “This is _not_ the man I fell in love with and it isn't because of your lost intelligence! The man I love believed that there was a acceptable risk in pushing the boundaries of science. Enough that he wouldn't advance the boundaries of _our_ relationship because he knew that would be a major falling out between us. I hate how you run GD, but I understand why you do it. You find the silver lining in every disaster and hide the debris. You protect these people of yours that ignore safety protocols _all in the name of science_. You take their deaths and redactions to heart, even if you act like they're renewable resources, because you know it's how you protect everyone else and what you all believe in. So, even if you don't understand and you're afraid to fail, we are looking at the extremely unreliable Fargo project whether you like it or not.”


	3. Reconstruction

[Link](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/l10TP8L6-baVPQryhcEWUOZrfxYrAL67RKb-FFRnLfRzvhH865xfLTh9HJJN41WD6t5zBq23p7RujMqH_EIIW2UVY4cDByP6iPIz_Z9Ple9a2ke0vgsD6L4qAiyk-s6iGiFwiHZwIGkghqF67Oqes-4rltA9fSZ8jBSGra_JvMYn9boZ_3tMUs7mZ0hdpsi1YZgOcyEcYcqVnFANUAYKq7BJ3MOplbyqJXI4kN_LR7_ElITNV_AK2tGDIKrHlWR1yFoHFO9W3r0s_P4pvlzOTr9WWuQfBr9sDJFkTIGc4Miz2r7hlZaqo3qBaueZ7L5TmSeXO_XnDmEv3T4sSHuiucEiK83OdPpe4aJc-XvvxdiLHZqx2yaU059DF1VVBa08JEGwwMDm2XjZ1-kurbqvenh7xVr4bTcNFzIimGvQUV6b7jAPyfmepbVR0DeE6MwDtI3OrdcpPLne4eSXde_UOxXtUGeXZbNs3xq6Qhu2JPHT9Ml1X2d5JhVHlB_YxiQbUUqP8mrGt035AGQoyiIHZT7IsIOKghMMuawse4cKUUL0QvK6CeTKOajoi8vsTxHBDeN4UYv134mtRgfLaymaiHFyqpIiXpFoRjYFJNEhVNfi7Rh06oUHhBeuxSim7d65TRW4JhRPiI_BJA4_HuOhNJh6OlnIvGXLNSnMoQiZAt_ijjPXDfP0HA=w391-h220-no)

_Elixir of Life_

Chapter 3

**Reconstruction**

_"Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy's first law of equivalent exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one and only truth." -Alphonse Elric_

* * *

“Oh good! Half the town knows that my selective amnesia is voluntary.” Nathan said as more people filtered in to the bunker than he was expecting. Zoe arrived, with Kevin in tow. Fargo arrived alone, no surprise there. However Jo showed up soon after with with Zane. 

“About that....” Zane said with a grin as he looked between Stark and Carter. “Care to elaborate on why you thought it worth giving up your life's work for the Sheriff you _love_ to hate?”

Nathan narrowed his eyes at him as he got a smug look on his face and wiggled his eyebrows. “Not that I owe you an explanation, Donovan, but there hasn't been much hate between Jack and I for years. I'm actually embarrassed for all of you that it took a town full of the world's greatest geniuses this long to realize there was something going on between us.”

“I told you there were fucking.” Zane said and looked at Jo. “I _told_ you!”

Jack shrugged as Jo looked at him with the 'I told you I would keep your secret' look, right before she slapped Zane upside the head for being crude. He was glad most of this was kept quiet in the last month, a real Eureka miracle. “Ok, so, let's all remember our kids are in the room? OK?”

“Better yet, let's get down to business so I can shut this group project down.” Nathan said.

“With what?” Jack scoffed. “Your wealth of counter arguments housed in the off site server?”

“Which leads us to question number one, _Fargo_.” Nathan turned his gaze on his assistant who was setting up a connection to S.A.R.A.H.'s TV with his tablet. “Why did you back up _my brain_?”

“I didn't...or at least I didn't mean to?” Fargo said and busied himself with his tablet. “I sort of forgot to remove the command path I was using for diagnostics during the Mental Mouse testing stage and then after the incident I realized what happened and I...”

“Yes?” Nathan prompted.

Jack snorted in amusement as Fargo got flustered, just like he always did while under the scrutinizing gaze of his boss. Nathan still had _it_, that was without question.

“You backed yourself up, dude.” Zane said and put his computer on the kitchen island to illustrate what had happened. “Your brain hacked the Mental Mouse and saved itself.”

“Oh, that's a plot twist.” Jack said and looked at the computer with Nathan. “Do you remember doing that?”

“No.” Nathan said.

“_Your_ subconscious preserved your brain.” Fargo said and came over to the kitchen island now that it was safe. “That's the only way the Mental Mouse would have gained access to this password protected server...is if you unlocked it. Prior to that incident this server was not available and only became part of the network because you added it. Your authorization is logged. Only the Director of GD can do that.”

Jack waved at the computer. “I sort of remember the melanoma thing was supposed to transmit his thoughts and commands directly to the computer system. So what you're saying is that, when Nathan wasn't dreaming of world domination, that he subconsciously preserved his mind on a secret server?”

“Ironic huh?” Zoe said. “The artificial intelligence guy transferring some of himself to a computer.”

“Taggart's nanobugs were on the same frequency.” Fargo said. “So you probably diverted some of your memories to the server to keep them away from the nanobugs who were acting out your fantasies and dreams.”

Jack saw Zane's eyes light up and, before he could stop him, the dumbass laughed and pointed an accusatory finger at Nathan.

“You didn't want the nanites acting out _certain _fantasies, did you?” Zane grinned.

“Is _he_ really necessary?” Jack asked his daughter who was grinning and looking at him. He really didn't want the whole town finding out about them this way, with the knowing smiles and jokes belittling what their relationship really was. It was more than that. It was true love. However, the love of his life Nathan just shrugged like there was no shame in admitting he diverted his naughty thoughts to an offsite server! _Really_? 

“Well Zane _is_ the resident computer guy.” Zoe said. “We have a computer problem.”

“A problem I have yet to hear solutions for.” Nathan said with his authoritative tone and that stopped Zane from grinning at him.

“We're not trying to use the server as your brain, we're actually trying to use the Mental Mouse to give you access to what you used to know and allow your brain to rewire so you can go back to thinking like you used to.” Fargo offered, always eager for some praise from his idol.

“Fargo, that just sounds ridiculous.” Nathan said and Zoe came over and dropped one of his thesises on the kitchen island in front of him. She smiled at him and he looked at his paper on artificial intelligence. He once believed that AI would be the solution to problems that plagued the brain, diseases like dementia. He had abandoned those ideas years ago, seeking instead to embrace the new life that AI could create.

“Now hear us out.” Zane said. “When you were connected to the Artifact, you used more of your brain than you used to. When you disconnected a directory was removed that you had been using. What should remain is the unaccessed data. We need a way to get to that data and translate it back to the section where you normally process everything. Brains grow, form new synapses and paths. We just have to help fill in some gaps.”

“What?” Jack asked and was surprised when Nathan echoed him.

“It's like there's two of them” Zane said and cocked his head. “It's adorable.”

“Shut up Zane.” They said in unison.

“Rest my case.”

Jo elbowed him. “Take this seriously. Please.”

“Ok, look, in computing you have a syntax error. Right?” Zane said and brought up some illustrations on his laptop. “A string of words not put together right to get a result, as in it doesn't make sense in the programming language. Syntax has meaning in human language too. What you're getting is a syntax error in your brain because the path is no longer there. We need to correct the command chain and let it access the information from a different source. Then we can install a translator to allow you to access the information in the rest of your brain.”

“I'm going to pass.” Nathan said and Jack and Zoe looked at him with that same look of disbelief. He shook his head, not quite feeling like himself for not being enthusiastic about the new technology in front of him.

Jack felt a twinge of worry about Nathan accessing the rest of his brain too. Like Carlson did before he started to go downhill. Things were happening again and they were taking different roads to the same mistake.

“I've made adjustments to my invention.” Fargo said. “I've tested it myself!”

“You tested it _on Larry_.” Zane said.

“I didn't say _on_ myself!”

“Ok, look.” Zoe said and pulled up a new diagram and attempted to remove the scowl from Nathan's face. “Fargo's invention connects your cerebral cortex to a computer. All we want to do is open up the pathway to this specific server where the Mighty Mouse backed up your subconscious.”

“Mental Mouse.” Fargo corrected her.

“What_ever_” Zoe said and tapped Nathan's thesis. “According to _you_, the future of artificial intelligence isn't just about how we can make robots more human but what we can use to restore pieces of humanity to ourselves.”

“I know what I wrote, Zoe.” Nathan said but she wasn't going to let up. She was a Carter and she was onto something and wasn't going to let it go. He didn't want to get pulled into a debate because he knew he was going to lose. He was already at the lowest point in his life and he couldn't take another loss. He felt a little flush of panic and it took a lot to calm himself. 

“Computers are supposed to be superior to us because they can multi-task and I think you've already proven, by outmaneuvering the Mental Mouse, that you're pretty capable of multiple complex tasks while a computer is watching.” She continued. “You put yourself away in a safe place, this isn't just about a few memories you didn't want reenacted on the streets of Eureka, you made a copy of your whole life until that point. You wanted to be able to retrieve this data at some point.”

“Or his ego wanted to be preserved.” Zane offered. “Imagine that. Nathan Stark poofs out of existence in some weird Eureka experiment gone wrong and we can craft some AI body and use his own brain back up to make an artificial Stark. I mean, it's almost poetic.”

Jo elbowed him harder than before and hissed. “You're _not_ helping.”

“It's the closest thing to immortality there is!” Zane said. “It's pretty cool if you ask me and if you asked him last month he probably would have green-lighted the project.”

Nathan pushed the thesis back to Zoe and then closed Zane's laptop in front of him. “I may not understand the complexity of what any of you are talking about, however I am well aware that you don't have a clue about what you're doing by the way you're info-dumping this brainstorm in my lap expecting me to put it all together for you. Do us all a favor and password protect that server, or let me do it.”

“Nathan...” Jack said as his cranky boyfriend went to look for something else to drink. “I asked everyone to come here and share with us with they're working on and I think we've established that this 'info-dump brainstorm' is exactly how we work best.”

“What _we_ are failing to mention is that I don't _think_ like that anymore.” Nathan said and realized he was out of Scotch and the only thing left was juice or beer. He glared at the ceiling knowing that S.A.R.A.H was more than capable of restocking his particular brand of Scotch and just chose not to. She thought he was using dangerous coping methods. He used to think A.I.s were a good idea and now he was seeing the flaws in that logic. 

“So it's like you don't feel compatible with that version of software?” Jack asked. He knew what Nathan meant, on many levels he wasn't that guy anymore. He was a better person, not as angry and power-hungry. He wouldn't react the same way as he didn't back then when they inevitably had to tackle this nanite army problem again.

Nathan turned to look at Jack and _really_ looked at him. His blue eyes warm and searching, his face conveying that he was following the trains of discussion here. He had been so wrapped up in his own loss he hadn't paid much attention to how much Jack had gained. The last month he wasn't just being supportive and understanding, he was _seeing_ things differently.

“Stark 1.0 must have really wanted to do some kinky shit.”

“Zane!”

“No, Donovan, I was referencing the fact that my way of thinking has changed. I no longer think on different levels at the same time. Like Jack said, I'm no longer capable of running that software. Connecting me to the information won't do me much good if I am incapable of processing it.” Nathan said without getting into the other aspects of it.

“Which is what the Mental Mouse is going to do for you.” Fargo said. “It's going to translate the information...”

“Fargo!” Nathan exclaimed and rolled his eyes. “I didn't lose the ability to recollect the information, I don't have a corrupted pathway that is preventing me from getting to it. It's gone. I simply can _not_ process that information anymore. You can not possibly comprehend what it's like losing that ability and knowing what you've lost.”

Jack tapped his fingers on the counter-top to make some kind of sound in the uncomfortable silence of the bunker. He couldn't imagine how hard it was for Nathan to mentally go from the equivalent of the L.A. highway system to a single lane road through the country. None of them could.

“Besides, we're not dealing with known quantities here,” Nathan said. “We are dealing with the Artifact . None of us understand that.”

“One of us does.” Jack said and pointed to Kevin who had been forgotten about in the living room and left to occupy himself with Fargo's tablet.

Nathan looked over as Kevin expertly worked the tablet and for the first time felt a flicker of hope. They walked over to see what he was working on and everyone remained silent until Zane finally spoke up.

“Is that...alchemy?.” Zane asked.

Jack was at a loss as to how that word from the past came into play and out of habit looked to Nathan for an explanation. What he saw told him that maybe they were looking in the wrong place. What he saw told him that Nathan was so desperate to save him that he turned to something he didn't believe in for answers. “So.... why don't you all keep working while Nathan and I go on a little road trip?”

* * *

“Imagine that, Nathan Stark playing God.” Christopher Dactylos snorted. “Although I didn't see this coming, you actually appreciating my work after you confiscated it.”

“I confiscated it because the work had similarities to the work Kim Anderson was doing before she was killed.” Nathan said and played with his watch to put some of his nervous energy somewhere. He wasn't handling so many people knowing about his condition, and the conditions of Jack's undeading, well. Jack just blurted out the information, because that's who he was, and he was looking for answers. Nathan still enjoyed confidentiality, especially with people he didn't get along with.

“This is less about the past and more about the present: where you used my work to bring back someone you got killed.” Christopher pointed out.

“Circles, circles, circles.” Jack mumbled as he walked around the alchemy lab and looked at all the symbols and drawings. They had been here before, arguing about the past and present and alchemy and science. “Everything keeps coming back around again.”

“I thought magic was for loser and wizards and had no place in science.” Christopher said and looked at Nathan who tried to roll his eyes and ignore his own words being thrown back at him. “However you wanted something _so_ bad that science couldn't provide and you came over to the dark side.”

“Ok, he brought me over from the dark side _of death_, so lay off would you?” Jack said and put his hands on his hips and looked around at all the equations. “What was that thing you and Henry were talking about, the equation that used to be over on this chalk board? Something about supernovas and Kim's research?”

Nathan looked at him pained. Why was he making him suffer through this in front of Dactylos of all people? “Jack, I can't answer that. It was about how a supernova could create heavy metals from lighter ones but I can't tell you more than that.”

“You really gave it up for him, didn't you?” Christopher asked, incredulously. “You actually abided by equivalent exchange and gave up something of equal value for _his_ soul?”

“Yeah.” Nathan said.

“Does this have to do with the Artifact you mentioned?” Christopher prodded. “Last time you were down here you were talking to Henry about _an Artifact_ and Kim Anderson's research.”

“It's what you alchemists would probably consider to be the Philosopher's Stone.” Nathan answered. “At least that's what I thought when I started this. I read your research after you were arrested under the pretense of redacting everything that could cross reference with the Artifact. I shared it with Kevin. He's somehow tied to the Artifact, as was Carl Carlson. The Artifact is the Akashic Field. ”

“Oh.” Christopher said and felt his hostility melt away as his lifetime of research came to fruition. He looked to the Sheriff and cocked his head. “Didn't you get shot next to Carlson on the exact same street that you recently got shot on?”

“Same day.” Nathan said and added. “Same time as Kim Anderson's death by exploding Artifact.”

“Full circle.” Jack mumbled as he looked at everything drawn on the chalkboards and charts down here. Transmutation _circles_. He felt like they were on the right path here, following this lead. His gut told him the answers were here.

“How did you do it?” Christopher asked.

“I went to the Artifact and touched it.” Nathan said. “Might have yelled a bit. Asked Kevin to communicate my wishes to it for me.”

“What did you see?”

“Everything.” Nathan said, his voice conveying the sense of awe he felt. Tears started forming in the corner of his eyes as he felt the pain of it all being gone. “All the knowledge, everything. Then it was taken away with everything I knew as it accepted my offering. I still have that feeling, that feeling of being connected to it all, without actually being able to access what I saw.”

Jack looked at him. He could feel Nathan's pain, his hopelessness. As much as he could still feel his own regret from the moments before he died.

“Incredible.” Christopher said, genuinely. “So what do you want from me?”

“We're trying to reconnect Nathan with his knowledge.” Jack said and saw Christopher react and it was a look of fear. Not good. “Yeah I remember that whole 'playing God' and 'Alchemist's Curse' lecture. I also remember you telling me that Newton's third law was that for every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction. I almost walked into your mobile and you said that one move somewhere makes chaos elsewhere. So the Artifact knowing everything Nathan knows, is probably really bad for us but at the same time it's gone out of it's way to keep us alive. I guess, we want to know what happens if we tinker with something that's been transmuted. If that curse things comes back into play.”

“The impact would have been immediate. If you're alive and he's dumb than the transmutation was a success and there was no excess energy to rebound.” Christopher informed him and could see that Nathan wasn't standing here looking at his work trying to process it, he was just _looking_. This was real.

“Our problem is that the power the Artifact contains is....indescribable.” Nathan told him. “Kevin is still connected to it. I remember him holding on to me when I was in the Field, in the void, stopping me from being consumed by it. We've developed a very unique connection now, like a quiet understanding. And Jack...is seeing things differently too.”

Jack looked at him. “How long have you known?”

“A while.” Nathan shrugged. “I was too blinded by my own problems to really see it for what it was. I felt your understanding, felt compassion. Then you made that comparison about me not having the right software downloaded and you were so confident, not just fishing for answers. I knew then you too were connected to the field from as many times as you've dealt with it. It is sharing information with you and Kevin. That terrifies me. It terrifies me because it's becoming more powerful and distributing itself more. Things are repeating themselves and I am unsettled by it.”

“So where does that leave us?” Jack asked. “And why is everything happening all over again? Why is every incident we have had in Eureka coming into play now? It's like we're coming around full circle and I can't help but be intensely uncomfortable at the fact that there are nothing but transmutation _circles_ in this alchemy lair.”

“The circle is the symbol of perfection.” Christopher explained. “What you're dealing with is called 'squaring the circle': something that is impossible. A phrase used to reference creating the philosopher's stone. A phrase that would have sent the mathematician in you into a smug and condescending lecture, Nathan.”

“Yeah.” Nathan shook his head. “Well I didn't create the stone, I just used it. I used it to do the impossible and bring back a soul from wherever and put it back in a body. I don't understand how.”

“Alchemy is just as much philosophy as it is science.” Christoper said. “It's about self-perfection. It's the Elixir of Life because it doesn't just cheat death, you come to a better understanding of nature and life as you work towards creating the philosopher's stone. You appreciate life more now, don't you? So much of alchemy is based in metaphors and allegories for spiritual endeavors. You have to appreciate the power and energy in the elements and world around you.”

Jack perked up when he heard 'metaphors'. Was that why he was suddenly like this? He was a product of an alchemy experiment and now he was predisposed to thinking like alchemy itself? He didn't ask, he didn't want to really get into how different his thinking had become because he was starting believe that he had gained Nathan's way of seeing the world during the equivalent exchange transaction. Then again, seeing the world at it's basic elements and appreciating it more sounded a lot like what Christopher was saying. It also sounded like something his sister would say and he shook that off fast. Lexi showing up because she had advice on his love life and the bad energy around them was not what he needed. “Ok, tell us more about these allegories.”

Christopher looked around his secret chamber and waved at a painting on the wall. “The ouroboros, a snake eating it's own tail, is a symbol of importance in alchemy especially in regards to the philosopher's stone. It symbolizes life and death, a duality of existence, the unity of all things. All is one and one is all. A never-ending cycle.”

“This isn't helping.” Jack said. “Why are we talking about snakes?”

“Eating it's own tail in order to sustain it's own life?” Christopher said. “Nathan gave up something we're all pretty reliant upon to stay alive in order to keep _you_ alive.”

“Ok, that's...sort of relevant I guess.” Jack said.

“Well Christopher must be worried, because he just paid me a huge compliment.” Nathan said and wished he could have the same feeling of understanding that he did when he was down here years ago. He wished he could explain what he did. He wished he could gloat instead of want to cry.

“All I'm saying is that you are both connected in this. Your sacrifice gave way to his gain.” Christopher said. “The Stone was intended to be used to craft gold from common metals and also be a way around death. However more spiritually it's about purifying the soul, from a common worthless metal of lead to a worthy and precious metal of gold.“

“Gold wedding bands it is, if we make it through this.” Jack mumbled.

“You two are the worst students I have ever had.” Christopher said and went over to the chalkboard and drew a circle and then kept going around until it was a scribbled ring of overlapping chalk circles. “You played God and you opened the door to another realm of knowledge. Now we are looping around and around all your prior knowledge in Eureka so you can come to a greater understanding of what you've already accomplished. It's the Elixir of Life, you found out what you want most in this world in this Artifact. Alchemy is about comprehension, deconstruction and reconstruction. You comprehend what you are made of, you fell apart without it and now you must put it all back together.”

“Ok.” Jack said. “So it's like...chemistry. Where you have two elements and they combine to make something else. Like Hydrogen and Oxygen making water.”

“And?” Christopher said as if Carter was his student.

“And...one of us is frozen water and needs melted so the knowledge can start flowing again. So we don't have to change the product, just the state.”

“Wow Jack.” Nathan said, genuinely impressed.

“Yeah, I know.” Jack shrugged.

“Alchemy, is about learning and bettering the student and the world. You looked to our past to find answers and now you see how science had a basis in something that was more enriching and wholesome than what it has become.”

“Now you sound like Henry.” Nathan said.

“So if we try and circumvent his bargain with the Artifact by hooking his brain up to a computer, then it's going to appreciate the growth and not kill me?” Jack said. “That sounds logical, right?”

“I don't know about that.” Christopher said. “It sounds like you're using an artificial Stone to try and bypass nature. Your knowledge was consumed in the reaction to get the result you wanted. You can not break that free and have it return to the state it was prior to the chemical reaction unless you do not want what it helped create.”

“That's not the answer I wanted!” Jack hissed. “I really hate science sometimes.”

“Maybe we are looking at this all wrong.” Nathan said, “Maybe it's about the circle, how we keep coming back full circle. How we keep making the same mistakes. How you've died and Kim has died and how the Artifact has stepped in to fix those mistakes.”

“Like we're in some kind of time loop?” Christopher offered.

“No time isn't looping over itself, it's like we're on the same tired path and we keep driving over potholes.” Jack said and shivered a little. He didn't know why he had such a bad reaction to the mention of a time loop. Maybe because he didn't like the _Groundhog Day _movie that much?

“So we've fucked up and nature is trying to right our course?” Nathan asked, knowing that was the conclusion Christopher was going for. Some things never changed.

“Yeah.” Jack said and looked at the circle Christopher had drawn and felt the answer dawn on him. “Yes! That's it!”

“What's it?” Nathan asked as Jack got his “Eureka” look on his face. He just connected it all together. As always. His hero.

“We need to go back to the beginning.” Jack said enthusiastically and waved Nathan over to the ladder as he started climbing up. “That's where this all started and we didn't do it right the first time.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Nathan asked. Then Jack disappeared and he sighed. “Why is he always running everywhere?”

Christopher looked over at Nathan and regarded him in a different light now. He was genuine when he said, “Good luck.”

* * *

“Zoe, do you remember when we first came to town and you saw us in a car coming the opposite direction?”

“Hi Dad. Welcome back Dad.” Zoe said as he burst into the bunker pointing and flailing about, as only her father could manage. So much for asking how their brilliant brainstorming had gone. “Yes, I do. It was right before you almost ran over a dog and crashed your car.”

“Yes.” Jack said and turned to Nathan as he entered the bunker and the door closed. “I told you, it's all coming full circle. We came to Eureka just as we were leaving. _I _came to Eureka on accident but instinct told me to take that wrong turn. I've never been that bad with directions! My gut told me to come here.”

“You're _talking_ in circles.” Nathan said and went over to the kitchen island where everyone was working. “That's about all I understand.”

“Nathan, we've done all this before! Carlson. The Artifact. Even Kevin being the one to solve the equation. Me dying. The nanobots repairing tissue. This melanoma thing. Alchemy! You getting stupid because of some experiment. We've done this all before and we're coming back around to it again.” Jack said and went over to Zoe. “I'm sorry I didn't believe you.”

“Well it sounded crazy. That was before crazy was our every day lives.” Zoe shrugged.

“What exactly does this mean?” Zane asked. “That there is some kind of time loop?”

“No.” Jack said and winced. He didn't know why he had some really awful feeling when time loops were mentioned. “I felt like I had to come here. Zoe, it was _our_ philosopher's stone! Doing so enriched our lives. We learned to be better people, we learned to appreciate each other, we learned a lot more about science than anyone really wants to know. You went from felon to valedictorian!”

“Yeah and I'm getting the feeling I'm not going to be giving my speech at graduation...” Zoe said.

“When I was shot _again_ all I could feel was regret.” Jack said and walked over to Nathan and kissed him. “_Overwhelming_ regret because I waited so long to tell you how I feel about you, Nathan.”

“That's adorable but not helpful.” Zane said and got smacked by Jo.

“Let him finish, he's long winded but he always gets to a point.” Jo said.

“Thanks.” Jack said and stroked Nathan's cheek and felt him lean into it. “You were a flirty asshole when we first met and I regret not making you feel just as uncomfortable in that infirmary when you were half naked.”

“Weird thing to regret.” Nathan said and considered that somewhat official start of their relationship, even if it was as rivals.

“If I had to do it over, I would have taken that chance and dished it back at you then everything would have been different.” Jack said and ran his hand over Nathan's shoulder. God, if they could have started this when he first came to town so much would have been different. However, like Nathan pointed out earlier when they were talking about his brain back-up, they had been different people. It didn't worry him, because he knew that guy he had been would have looked at Stark as the challenge and not their lives. That Jack Carter would have never believed that he could be come the man he was now. He would have feared losing this because he would never believe it possible.

Nathan considered it as Jack hovered in front of him, eyes glistening because he was following his gut instinct and tracking some scent only he could find. “Yes. I can say that if you had been an equally flirty asshole than things would have definitely gone differently.”

“Enough that you and I would have been public about this thing of ours?”

“At that time....most definitely, yes.” Nathan said. “I was separated from my wife and knew we should get a divorce. Angry about that failure of a marriage. I had no intentions of reconciling with Ally when I came back, I just wanted the job. You made me fight for her. I liked the fight, I liked fighting with you. Didn't realize I liked fighting with _you_ more than _for her_. I would have been more than aware that a rebound relationship was doomed to fail but the drama of that would have helped craft the image I wanted as head of GD. So yes, there would have been no reason to keep it secret or our flirting contained because you would have just been a quick fling. I would have never believed you and I could be this. You, however, made me what I am today and I believe you could do it again.”

“Yeah, same here. My wife was at home in my bed with her boyfriend while I'm hunting down my runaway daughter. I end up in Eureka, and this place is so damned weird. I get transferred to this tiny ass town from a job I love and dedicated my life to and I didn't want to be here. What did I have to lose? Plus I would have counted on the sexual tension and animosity once our relationship tanked to make things miserable in this town. It would have counted on it failing, because I just came off a hostile failed marriage. So yeah, going after you probably would have gotten me transferred back to the Marshall service.”

“I agree.” Jo said. “That is exactly how it would have played out. Kinda how I actually fantasized about getting your job.”

“Really?” Jack asked. “You never wanted to share that with me?”

“Like you shared your three year long love affair with the director of GD with me?” Jo asked.

“Ok, that's fair.” Jack shrugged.

“I guess I can see it going that way, you were angry and so wrapped up in your job that I can see you sabotaging a relationship from the beginning to get it back.” Zoe said and they all looked at her.

“Thanks honey.” Jack said weakly.

“Until Callister.” Zoe added. “Then you changed. Both of you. I watched it happen.”

“And you two would have definitely lasted that long based on hate sex alone.” Jo said. “And your flirting was _never _contained, for the record.”

“Eh, I might not have lasted past that Mental Mouse nanobug situation in the auditorium.” Nathan admitted. “Jack kissing my ex-wife in front of me? Jealous, yes, but not for the reasons you anticipated. I would have taken the opportunity to make a show of it and turn the tables on you.”

“I...have to admit I would be pretty into that.” Jack said with a little blush and shrug. “'Crisis averted, let's celebrate' has always been pretty good for us.”

“Where are we going with this?” Zane asked. “Because I feel like all the work I've been doing is going to get scrapped.”

“I did this all wrong.” Jack said to all of them. “If Nathan and I got together in the beginning, between working with each other and being with each other romantically....Eureka would have been spared a lot. Jo? Science- based incidents rose exponentially when I got here, right?”

“Oh yeah.” Jo nodded.

“Numbers don't lie.” Kevin added and then went back to working on the tablet.

“Forcing me to work with Nathan.” Jack said. “Pushing us together. Working together, _working_ all the time being our major flaw that ruined our marriages. All these events, all these disasters got in the way of science. Disasters that killed Kim and Carlson. The Artifact attaching itself to Kevin. We've destroyed GD, you lost your job and eventually got it back...but so much happened in the interim that would never have happened if you were in control. Just the disasters alone are so many that it's improbable it would all happen here, in this small town of 2,000 people.”

“You also ended up naked a lot because of those incidents.” Nathan smirked. “The Artifact was pretty in tune with what I liked to see, apparently.”

“So what do you want to do?” Zane asked. “Go back in time and flirt with Stark on day 1?”

“Yes.” Jack said, emphatically.

“Time travel is a big no-no.” Fargo said.

“Not when we have an all powerful doorway to knowledge in Section 5.” Jack said. “Who is trying to tell us to get shit right.”

“I'll just use the Fargo melanoma.” Nathan said. “I'm not losing you because you want to jump into a wormhole and go back to the past and hope we can get things right.”

“Nathan!” Jack said. “You connect to the computer and it will work for a little while and then we're going to come back around to another problem, possibly a clone army and probably Carlson's brain overheating. We can't isolate you from the GD computers unless you stay locked in my house all the time! It's not the answer, _this_ is the answer! I can feel it. All this talk about seeing how great life is and that being the metaphorical meaning behind the Philosopher's Stone is about getting a second chance! Not just in coming back from the dead, but to do things right on a larger scale. We are a hell of a team and when we work together we do great things. We balance each other out, we make each other better.”

“You do get more done when you're happy.” Fargo admitted to his boss.

“Going back in time has it's challenges.” Zane said. “Like _world-ending_ consequences. Oh and it's impossible.”

“'Squaring the Circle', right?” Jack said and got that 'ah' look when Zane gave him a surprised quirk of the eyebrow for that.

“That phrase also means that you're bringing together two things that are so different that nobody considers it possible they could co-exist together.” Zoe said. “I think that applies pretty well to you and Nathan, so maybe time travel is impossible but I think you two have proven you can tackle just about anything.”

“Except that we've done it before.” Jack said and looked at Zoe. “Time travel. You and me. We did it before. We don't remember it but clearly something happened that we saw ourselves leaving Eureka as we were just arriving.”

“And the fact that we're going down that road again means we screwed it up.” Zoe replied. “Dad, Zane is right, we can destroy the universe doing this. We have to figure out how to make sure we do it right before we run out of chances.”

“I'm not going to risk losing you again, Jack. To hell with what the Artifact wants.” Nathan interrupted. He knew Jack was on a roll, he could see everyone thinking his words through and considering the possibilities. This was how it always started, right before Jack threw himself into danger without considering it might cost him his life.

“There is no way you and I don't end up together.” Jack said and kissed him again. “And the Artifact is as bad as my house when it doesn't get what it wants. “

“I heard that.” S.A.R.A.H chirped.

“We both have to go.” Zoe said fully believing in her Dad's theory now. “We were both in the car. That's what I saw and we can't change that.”

“Jack this is ridiculous.” Nathan said and was kissed again to silence his protest.

“Nathan, I know what I'm feeling and this is the right thing to do. Otherwise things are just going to keep happening.”

“You can exchange your memories to go back.” Kevin said. “The toll prevents tainting the past. Without memories, you can't ruin the timeline.”

“See!” Jack said. “The Artifact knows!”

“Without memories, you've got no way of knowing you need to fix or save anyone.” Fargo reminded them. “You've personally saved me a lot.”

“Saved all our asses a lot.” Zane added.

“Well you're not getting into GD without my help and I won't help you do this.” Nathan said and looked away, knowing he was losing this battle because Jack was going to once again sacrifice himself. “I expect this from you Jack, but I expect better from you, _Zoe._”

“I'll expect more help with my homework next time around, _Nathan. _I fully expect to enjoy the perks of my Dad dating _the_ Nathan Stark and keeping him happy enough to win another Nobel.” She said and looked to Zane and Fargo. “So you two can get us in to the Artifact, right?”

Jack pulled Nathan to him and kissed him again. “I know what I feel. It's always been a gut instinct that lead me to the answer and this is no different. It's a feeling. You said the Artifact communicated without words, because words weren't good enough to explain everything and I get that. Hell, it's what brought us together because you were nothing but words and I was all made-up words and action. There's a universe full of answers out there, Nathan, and there is no reason that trusting your gut isn't the right one.”

“It is when it can kill you.”

“Hasn't stuck yet.” Jack reminded him.

“You're not invincible.” Nathan said and tears started to fall because Jack was going to do this and there was no stopping him.

“I'm still here, aren't I?” Jack said and reached up and brushed away a tear.

“For the moment. Until you erase all of this.” Nathan said. “Thankfully I don't know enough about time travel anymore to know if I am going to be left in this timeline without you or not. At least your memories will be gone, I'll live forever knowing what I lost. Talk about a running theme.”

“We're working on the principle of equivalent exchange, right?” Jack said. “Something of equal value must be given. We're bound together. You and me. This love of ours never needed to be public or declared to be real, but I regret not saying it because those three simple words hold more power than a dozen Artifacts ever could. I regret not sharing us with our friends and family because there is something amazing about two people who love each other that warms the heart. I regret a lot, but my regrets come from not having more time with you and unfortunately...I'm counting on that regret to resonate through to the past and make me jump your half-naked body in that infirmary. I love you, Nathan Stark, but at that point I lusted after you because you were a hot piece of ass.”

Now Jack was crying. Nathan could hear other people crying too and he didn't want this. He didn't want their last bit of time together to be like this. The mood was almost as bad as Jack's funeral and that was not the send off his hero deserved. Even if he might die again. Full circle. _Dammit!_ “There is one thing we can do right, before you go.”

“What's that?”

“Marry me?”

“What?”

“Oh good, at least some things never change. I always knew that would be your answer to that particular question.” Nathan said and got down on one knee in the kitchen in front of Jack as everyone looked at him with a glimmer of hope through tears of sorrow. “I love you, Jack Carter. I've loved you so much that I was more afraid of hurting you by telling you than embracing it and taking on the world together. Now you're going to run off again and save it by yourself and that ache of regret is ruining the little time we have left. I told a godlike alien entity that you were one of a kind in order to bring you back and I never told you that. So before you go, I want to confess my love to you in front of friends and family and take a vow to love you for all eternity. So, Jack, will you marry me?”

“Yes.” Jack said and bit his lip as he started to cry again.

“S.A.R.A.H? Call Henry. We're doing this right now.” Zoe ordered.

The house sniffled and answered in a sobbing voice, “I will.”

“We need gold rings.” Jack said as Nathan slowly rose to his feet and kissed him.

“Really hung up on these metaphors, aren't you?” Nathan huffed.

“It means something,_ it's symbolic._” Jack said. “I might have only found out _why_ it's symbolic about an hour ago, but that doesn't make it any less right.”

“We'll have to make them.” Nathan said. “Buying them will ignite the rumor mill.”

“Make them?” Jack asked. “Like...from lead?”

“Metaphors have to stop somewhere.” Nathan mumbled. “I'll melt down some jewelry and we can cast them.”

“You have a lot of gold jewelry, do you?”

Nathan glared at him, leave it to Jack to bounce back from tears and start teasing him to change the mood. “No, but I have a gold pocket watch my Dad gave me when I graduated M.I.T. and my Nobel is made of gold. You want symbolism, I'll melt away my academic accomplishment and forge it into my emblem of never-ending love and devotion to you.”

Jack smiled at that for a brief moment, long enough to hear Zoe gasp and say how beautiful that was. It _was_ beautiful and it _was_ symbolic, but he _wasn't _going to let an opportunity slide to tease Nathan and see him smile instead of look like he was going to cry again. “You have a PhD in jewelry making?”

Nathan had to laugh and closed his eyes, he felt Jack's lips on his...a half-assed apology for ruining the moment. This was them though and he loved this about them. He wrapped his arms around him and hugged him tight. For the first time in ages he prayed, prayed that this stupid idea of Jack's was going to work and he wasn't going to lose him again. “S.A.R.A.H? You have way that we can cast some rings?”

“Yes. I have a laser and fire bricks from the fireplace....as well as a nuclear reactor in the supply closet.” S.A.R.A.H said. “Henry will be over soon, perhaps you should go home and change? I know the Sheriff likes seeing you in a tuxedo.”

“Does he now?”

“Everyone does.” Jack said and then rolled his eyes. “And I'm pretty sure I've told you that.”

“Ok, go get dressed. We're getting married.” Nathan needed to go home to get changed so he grabbed his keys from the counter and held them over his head. “Not drunk anymore, save the handcuffs for the honeymoon.”

Jack rolled his eyes. Like that was ever going to happen, damned control freak. The door closed and he looked to Jo and said, “So you want to be my best woman? Sorry if I'm ruining your chances to plan my wedding by hastily getting married in the face of certain death.”

Jo screamed and ran over and jumped into his arms. “My best friend is getting married!”

“Yeah, I am.” Jack said and looked up as the bunker door opened and Nathan came back.

“Hey Kev?” Nathan said and saw his son's eyes lift up to him, a smile on his face as he absorbed the joy of the situation and was proud to be a part of it. “I need a best man. I hope you still fit into that tux I bought you for that charity ball.”

“Yes!” Kevin said and got up and ran over to his Dad and hugged him. “Thank you!”

“Alright, let's swing by your Mom's house and tell her the news and see if we can't keep quiet about my honeymoon plans to break into GD and send my husband back in time to marry me when I was young and smart.”

Fargo stood in the middle of all of it and looked to Zane, “What the hell just happened?”

“Pretty sure Director Stark just scrapped our project.” Zane said and shut down his laptop. “Come on Fargo, let's go get changed. Sounds like we're going to a wedding.”

“I will prepare the bunker.” S.A.R.A.H. said. “You will not leave me out of this.”

“Wouldn't dream of it.” Jack said.

* * *

“Love is timeless, transcending everything we know, everything we understand, and giving us strength and comfort forever. What is past is now present, and what is present will become your future. That is what love is, never ending.” Henry looked at his best friend and his former student standing in front of him looking entirely lost in each other. He smiled for them, smiled with them and felt entirely confident in their ability to achieve the impossible. They did it every damned week and now would not be a exception. He wished he was surprised by their confession of love, and plans to fix the past, but that was all Jack Carter. Nathan simply let himself be swept up in it, and it was about time he did. “It is my honor to pronounce you bound in matrimony, my friends.”

The cheers went up among the small crowd of people in the bunker as Nathan and Jack kissed in front of the fireplace. Jack leaned against Nathan as he kissed him and then broke off the kiss to whisper, “I love my Easy bake oven ring. I promise I will never give away this Nobel Prize.”

“I thought engraving 'Never Forget 10/3' was a little over the top, but your house insisted.”

“Pretty sure I don't get to take it with me. Or this body.” Jack said. “I kind of hope so, I'm really looking forward to tackling _us_ with less scars and arthritis from all these injuries over the years.”

“I'm pretty excited for me to have a more flexible husband.” Nathan said and winked. “More excited to not have to see you in a hospital bed more times than my own bed.”

“I am kinda excited to get an I Do Over.” Jack chuckled at his own joke. “Maybe next time I'll propose to you.”

“Not likely.” Nathan said and realized he was scared to let him go and they were still in the embrace from their kiss. “I think you need to know, before you leave, that I didn't need to have my shirt off or my pants unzipped for a routine medical exam after I passed out on that first day we met.”

“_Really?_” Jack said, dripping with sarcasm.

“I was trying to intimidate you, show I wasn't all brains....” Nathan smirked. “Remind Allison of what she had married if she wanted to take advantage of it.”

“You're like... seven foot tall and you have to sprawl all over the place to just fit in a chair. Whatever part of the room you don't fill with your huge, amazing body, you fill with your voice. I think I noticed you weren't just PhDs.” Jack snorted and then added. “Even if that sprawling was a power play and you were trying to occupy as much space as possible to make sure I knew who owned it, the jokes on you because it only made me look at your crotch more.”

“Maybe that was the point.”

“You mean, maybe your subconscious was trying to make that point?” Jack said and kissed him again. “I never want this moment to end but I also want to get this over with. I love this life with you Nathan, even if it's not how we could have done it best. I love you. Any life with you is great.”

“We should stop avoiding the inevitable.” Nathan said and kissed his forehead. “Mainly because we have to strand Ally here so she can't stop us and it's looking suspicious that we're both crying.”

“I'm glad you and Henry patched things up.” Jack said. It really made him happy to see the rift repaired between those two, a rift that had formed long before he arrived in Eureka but had only widened over time.

“Here's hoping that we fall in love before I can make that mistake again.” Nathan said. Jack would help mend their friendship, and he and Henry believed that he could save Kim. The only person in this world capable of talking him out of something was here in his arms, he just hoped he wasn't an idiot this time around and held onto him from the beginning.

“Don't Forget, October 3rd.” Jack said weakly as he raised his hand up with his wedding band on it.

“We should go.” Nathan said softly. “I can't stay strong much longer.”

“Me either.” Jack said. “I feel like I'm back under GD's floor spraying that Alchemist's Curse bacteria while the building collapses around me. I never felt so claustrophobic and panicked when I wasn't in an airplane. I feel like I'm going to watch the world erode around me when I go. I feel like the Artifact is trying to prepare me for that fear knowing that I'm going to rush towards it to get it over with.”

“Then we should go.” Nathan repeated and looked over to Zoe and looked to the door. It reminded him of the day of Jack's funeral, when they went to GD to bring him back. The feeling of loss, the need to outrun that feeling propelling his feet forward more than confidence that it was the right thing to do. Deja Vu all over again. Except, today was his wedding day and he was about to watch his husband vanish before his eyes. God he hoped the next life was less painful than this. 

“Listen up people!” Zoe said as she tapped her water glass and stood on the coffee table. “It's traditional for the best man and woman to toast the newlyweds and say a few words first, however I have to say before anyone else does...”

Jack and Nathan looked to her, impressed by her ability to control the room and the initiative she took to give them a chance to leave.

“....._it's about time_.” She said as everyone raised their glass and toasted the new couple. “I know this wedding was a shock to some, but for me I've known the day would come when these two would finally admit their feelings to us all. So I've had a little something hidden away for the occasion, which I happen to keep in my locker at school. So if you don't mind me borrowing them for just a little while, I want to take them to go get it since my Dad is the only one who can unlock the school after hours.”

“She's good.” Nathan whispered.

“She's a former juvenile delinquent.” Jack reminded him. “She's a con artist.”

“You say con artist, she says valedictorian and I say upper management material.”

“Oh yeah, because you can control Carters so well.” Jack scoffed.

“Eh, point taken.” Nathan said and kissed him. “Ok, time to go.”

* * *

“What do you mean you just walked in and touched it?” Zoe said and pointed to the fireball beyond the heavily fortified doors.

“I felt like it was the right thing to do?” Nathan offered as an explanation. He looked through the glass at the white corridor with the Artifact glowing beyond the doors at the other end. Full circle, just like Jack said. A month ago he was here and now they were back. However he wasn't the same person who came here before, he had a deeper understanding of things and it had nothing to do with the Artifact or his intelligence.

“You two are meant for each other.” Zoe mumbled and put her hands on her hips as the alarms went off around them. Apparently Nathan's access to the Artifact chamber had been revoked by Allison as she expected him to return here at some point. Some quick hacking by Zane and Fargo at a remote station in the bunker got them this far, and her Dad knocking out the guards with some Marshall badassery bought them time. “However Allison is on her way with GD security to stop you two from making another mistake so we need to do this.”

"It's going to be all right." Jack whispered.

Nathan took a deep breath as words from the past echoed back to him again, as if Carlson's ghost was trapped in the Artifact chamber:_ It's going to be all right. _He felt warm tears rolling down his cheeks and wished he wasn't falling apart so much today. He thought his world was crumbling because he didn't know who he was anymore, but now he really knew that none of it mattered as much as Jack did. The Artifact was Truth, and now he knew the truth at his very core: Jack was his world.

_One day you will know. The question is, will you be ready?_

“Fuck.” Nathan suddenly blurted out as tears could no longer be contained and suddenly Jack was pressed against him, holding his face in his hands and kissing him. Trying to keep him together long enough to open the damned doors and let them go into the chamber. “Carlson. _He knew._”

“Knew what?” Jack asked confused.

“About us.” Nathan said. “He could read minds, he knew what it was like to feel emotions this powerful around him. He knew I was attracted to you, he knew you got my attention and...the Artifact knew all along.”

“Nathan, we _barely_ knew each other.”

“_God Jack_, I knew there was something about you from the very moment we first met. It was a feeling and I am a scientist and feelings are not quantitative so I dismissed it.” Nathan felt a thumb brush away a few tears and he closed his eyes. “Carlson felt it, he knew if he asked me to take you down here I would do it. Anyone else I would have...I wouldn't have violated as many rules as I did to keep them alive and potentially lose access to the Artifact. I knew there was something great about you.”

“I gotta do this.” Jack said as his PDA went off. They were out of time. “Now.”

“I know.” Nathan wiped his tears away and kissed him one last time. “Go. I love you.”

“Love you too.” Jack said and started to cry as well. Dammit. Then he turned to his daughter who looked pensive but too brave for what she was volunteering for. Apparently she did get something from him. He rolled his thumb over the new ring on his finger as his free hand took hers. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

“_I'm ready._” Same words that Carlson spoke and that was not lost on him. Nathan sat down at the computer console and opened the doors. Alarms began blaring and he could see windows pooping up all over the screen as Zane and Fargo tried to override the system as Ally tried to shut it down. She was just trying to protect them, protect Kevin, so he didn't fault her for doing her job. Well....his job. The job he feared he couldn't do right if he let Jack compromise him. Now he hoped, more than anything, that Jack would compromise him. Make him into a better man who made better decisions. He sat back and watched as Jack and Zoe walked in and the door closed. He could be killing them, but he had some unfounded faith in the Artifact and overwhelming faith in Jack so he hit the enter key and opened the Artifact door. At 6 pm on his wedding day, the light filled the room and was so blindingly white he couldn't see anything else as time stopped and the void welcomed them all into it's embrace.

* * *

_Eureka, 2006_

So far Jack thought Eureka completely sucked. It was great the first time, a real father-daughter bonding experience, but that all changed when he got reassigned here a week later. The one thing that could possibly go his way was this flirty thing he had with Allison and then he finds out she's married! To the new director of GD, no less! A super hot scientist with Nobel prizes and doctorates! How the hell was Mr. Average Sheriff going to compete with that? Not that he wanted to, because the last thing he wanted to get involved in was someone else's screwy marriage, he had plenty of his own to deal with.

He wanted to think it could be worse. He could be dead. Or he could be Susan Perkins who was just informed that she was dead and had a surprise son with her ex-husband who made a life with a clone of her. Yeah, a least he wasn't Susan Perkins, that was the only thing he had going for him.

Jack walked in to the infirmary and was reminded that Allison was still very much Nathan Stark's wife by the look she was giving him as he laid on the bed mostly undressed. He was smiling at her. Warmth was in those smiles. Ugh, yeah, _no _chance with Allison no matter what she said about being separated and wanting a divorce. More importantly, what the hell was a scientist doing with those abs!? Was Nathan Stark even real!?

Anyhow, to make things even worse, now Stark was getting attacked by ghosts and falling out of his clothes to keep his ex-wife's eye on him. Why not? Apparently that was just another day in Eureka. He clearly wasn't getting involved with Allison and this thing, or whatever they had, was clearly off limits due to her still being married. He wasn't even sure what to do with Stark's ghost problem and this little heart-to heart of his about confessing he saw a 'not ghost' because he was too fucking intelligent to believe in that kinda thing. People in this town were weird. He really wanted to get back to the office and start tracking down all his earthly possessions so he just waved and said, “Yeah, I'll check it out. Thanks.”

End of what could be considered a rather homo-erotic encounter, but that would be some kind of miracle and apparently miracles didn't happen in Eureka. Before he could leave, that rich and flirty voice said that this wasn't over yet.

“Are you sleeping with my wife?”

Jack froze in place and his whole body went from loose and casual to tense and defensive. He turned on Dr. Stark and glared at him as he cocked his head and slowly buttoned up his shirt. It was a weird feeling of deja vu, like he had been here before. That was stupid, because he would definitely remember if some hot scientist was redressing in a seductive manner and accusing him of adultery. 

“No...” Nathan drawled. “But you wish you were.”

Something about the cowardly power play, a stab in the back as he was leaving no less, just struck a nerve with him. So the new director wanted to make things personal? Well that also rubbed him the wrong way on a professional basis. Nevermind that he felt offended on Allison's behalf, but he barely knew her at all and he had his suspicions about her and the previous director anyhow. So he took a step towards Stark as he slowly put his shirt on and lifted his chin, meeting the challenge to be just as immature. “Sounds like something you should ask _your_ wife instead of projecting your obvious marital insecurities on the first male you find threatening.”

Nathan grinned like predator ready to pounce his prey that had turned to fight instead of flee. So the new Sheriff had an aggressive side to him as well. Not surprising with a U.S. Marshall background, law enforcement types were a type in itself. He took his time buttoning the last button, leaving the conversation hanging just a few seconds longer to see if the silence made Carter uncomfortable. He laughed a little, just to convey the ridiculousness of the notion that he was _at all_ insecure. “Threatening? Please. Flirty? Attractive? Eyeing my wife like you can see through her clothes? Yeah.”

“Oh.” Jack said and changed his attitude completely to throw off the obviously eager to argue asshole. He held his hand up apologetically. “So sorry. I misread the situation. Clearly you greeted me with your shirt off, laying invitingly on the bed so you could advertise your perfect abs and surprisingly fit body. Nice, by the way, wasn't expecting a body like that on a scientist turned bureaucrat. I though you sat at a desk or lab table all day, clearly wrong there. Look man, you're the definition of tall, dark and handsome and I'm sure you're brilliant and an overachiever in _all_ respects, but until you're _not _married I'm _not_ interested.”

Nathan smiled. He couldn't control it, he genuinely smiled in surprise at the Sheriff's comeback. He wasn't sure if it was the fact that he was the first person in a long time to actually hold his own against him, the flattering words or the fact that he was gorgeous and more naughty than the boy scout image let on. Maybe all three. He never thought he'd feel this exhilaration at having the tables turned on him but now he most certainly was not concerned about Ally at all. “Well, maybe I will be discussing things with my wife tonight.”

“And I don't do open marriages or threesomes.” Jack said with a wave of his hand. “I don't share well.”

“Good to know.” Nathan said and finished buttoning his cuffs. “Neither do I.”

“Well, now that we got that cleared up, I'll go get back to ghost-busting so you don't faint again.” Jack said and couldn't resist winking at him. Fuck this guy and his massive ego and abs. “However when you're single again, I'll buy you a cup of coffee.”

“Coffee's free.”

“Then you can buy.” Jack said and started to back up towards the door and eyed him like he was looking through his clothes. Yeah, _maybe_ he actually did want to fuck that guy. “I can see you like being in control, I'll let you make the first move.”

“Let me?” Nathan scoffed.

“Yeah it can be _our thing_.” Jack said.

“We don't have _a thing_.” Nathan countered.

“We might.” Jack said and gave him an innocent smile as he turned to leave and then waved at him over his shoulder.

Nathan reached for his tie and watched Carter's ass as he walked out the door. He licked his lips and enjoyed the smile that wouldn't leave his face. “Yeah, we might.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This brings this story to it's conclusion and I hope I tied up all the little threads. Obviously I pulled a lot of episodes into this, but overall I wanted to work with Once in a Lifetime, the finale and also the pilot where Jack and Zoe see themselves going back to Eureka. Except with Nathan. 
> 
> Lots of symbolism and overlapping, maybe some day when I'm not so worn out from working on this I'll leave a more detailed list. 
> 
> I hope the angst paid off. Comments, concerns and cursing welcome. :)


End file.
